#like they literally go out of their way to harass MCU fans
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It's so nice being a Moon Knight fan when you don't have a comic purist telling you how much you suck for enjoying the show as well.
#im getting annoyed again#this is about a tweet someone made on x the everything app#they did a 'we listen and we don't judge' for MK#and#of course#most of the replies were ppl saying that they actually like the show#which OP replied to saying that they do in fact judge...#LIKEEEE#OBVIOUSLY thats what people were going to say for their opinion???#either you're baiting or you're a lovely combination of daft and dense#i fear its the latter as this is the number 1 MK comic purist on X the everything app#like they literally go out of their way to harass MCU fans#and its like... do you even enjoy the character or do you just enjoy hating#and YES the show is flawed#and YES i wish it had better Jewish rep#but i wish comic purists in general would realise that these are ADAPTATIONS#it's never going to be 1:1#isn't that more exciting to you???#having something new and a fresh take on a character rather than verbatim??#it is to me#and i think mk especially does a nice job at this#mcu knight is a nice different ADAPTATION which i personally really like#sigh#ANYWAYS#moon knight
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So you can't complain no one's playing the choose violence ask game with you! I choose 6, 7, 16 and 22. You can pick a fandom for each, obviously. ����
6. which ship fans are the most annoying?
usually every major/main ship in a fandom. i like a main pairing maybe 5% of the time because iâm usually relegated to side character and secondary pairing hell. doesnât matter if the ship is canon or headcanon, there is an extreme likelihood that i will hate it. i get lucky occasionally (a business proposal and kiseki scored on both main and secondary pairings) but itâs rare. i hated just about every main pairing in MCU fandom (god my sins are vast) and i hated 99% of flash ships â fuck westallen until i die, fuck harrisco â in favor of ghost ships and decades-spanning headcanons.
i also hate when people get snide about exclusively shipping queer ships. âoh all hetero ships are annoying, oh the straights arenât okayâ maybe take five minutes to actually seek out well-written work rather than dismissing it all immediately. as a bi woman in a relationship with a cis guy, i do fucking take it personally when people harp about queer supremacy like a ton of gays arenât their own special brand of dumpster fire. thereâs plenty of well-done m/f media out there and thereâs plenty of absolutely garbage-ass m/m or f/f ships and stories. none of itâs inherently good or inherently bad based on the genders of the partners involved.
and because i know youâre baiting me, yes, KP fans were the most annoying motherfuckers on the planet bc they would be deliberately obtuse about their own pairingâs flaws in order to tear down everyone elseâs. the number of times i wanted to shout PHYSICIAN, HEAL THYSELF at people who looked at a narcissistic rapist and his kidnapped indentured servant as a model of a healthy relationship is beyond all measure. i donât care if you ship the assholes, just stop acting like they were in any way, shape, or form a pair of functional adults. god knows those of us on the VP side werenât exactly rocking the best moral high ground, but at least a lot of us acknowledged they were freak nasty disasters with the social skills of genie the feral child. the toxicity is the point! donât sanitize it.
oh, and fuck people who think that harassing actors because the actor had the audacity to have a real-life relationship with someone who wasnât their costar is acceptable behavior. iâm pretty live and let live about rpf until you start causing real-life consequences for people because you canât let go of your delusions.
7. what character did you begin to hate not because of canon but because how how the fandom acts about them?
man, doug renetti from minx is a great example of this. i donât hate the character in the show. heâs great (heâs fucking awful), heâs compelling, heâs a fucking dirtbag trainwreck and i love watching him. fandom is entirely incapable of discussing literally ANYTHING ELSE about the show in favor of beating off to jake johnson in his greasiest form. i tend to get itchy when people ignore 99% of the show just to spam the tag with the one mediocre uggo they crank their hog to.
i donât hate him and hopefully never will because heâs perfect, but i also tend to get itchy when people ignore basically all of kiseki and just focus on ai di. like, i love him, too! character of all time! louis deserves a golden bell for that performance! but k4 as a whole deserves that golden bell and just because chen yi and zong yi and ze rui arenât overtly flashy murder kittens doesnât mean theyâre not fascinating and compelling characters. itâs irrational, but it irritated me as a kiseki lifer to watch people sort of tourist-cruise through and coo over ai di for a week or two before forgetting the show entirely. SO MUCH garbage BL out there and 99% of this site slept on actual good BL. (on the other hand, do i want more people in the fandom? jesus, no. iâll keep the rent-lowering 21-gun salute going hourly if i have to.)
generally, though, a character is doomed for me the second they become a tumblr fave. if i see a characterâs face five times in one day theyâre likely to hit my hate list. my tolerance for overexposure is almost none.
16. you can't understand why so many people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon, etc)
âbabyâ as a pet name, a/b/o (which makes me fucking puke â i cannot abide that itâs mainstream now), VP petplay, and an overreliance/need to make things porny. iâm no prude; i read it, i write it, and itâs not like iâm above seeking it out. but as someone who struggles with writing it, i wish it felt less necessary/expected to include. i also feel like a lot of shows use extra sex scenes to compensate for lazy/shitty writing, so rather than complement a narrative, it feels like itâs carrying the narrative instead. i like a good fuck scene as much as the next person, but when your simulated boning feels like a time-filler and not something thatâs moving the story forward, youâre losing me fast.
i find a lot of enemies-to-lovers pretty poorly handled. not opposed to it, but a lot of people donât do it well. i loathe miscommunication tropes. there can be exceptions if the characterization and context is strong enough, but it takes a skilled writer to pull that off. despise love triangles. iâm picky about AUs. i CANNOT STAND âlove interest is rude because they secretly like their future partner.â nothing will get me to throw the book across the room faster than an arrogant asshole who looks down their nose at their partner. i did not have a mr darcy phase at any point in my life. mr darcy and his ilk can eat paint chips. even watching a man get humbled by love is not enough to save that one for me. i read too much early/mid-2000s manga (this is a hot gimmick callout) to be able to deal with that shit anymore.
as a general rule, i am the cheese standing alone. i am unlikely to agree with a lot of the big/popular headcanons bc iâm contrary and i donât like going along with the dictate of a handful of BNFs who handed the word down like they were giving the ten commandments to moses. the problem is that i have been in so many fandoms of various sizes over so many years that i have seen some of the worst human beings alive ruin the space for smaller/less popular voices. (and thatâs a cassie claire callout. you were a cunt then and youâre a cunt now and even when you were ripping off every property you could get your grimy hands on, your writing was still unreadable OOC garbage.) so i tend to disregard whatever fandom is into in favor of being into my own weird little niche shit.
22. your favorite part of canon that everyone else ignores
already answered :V
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You were Not kidding about episode five....not only were they planning on being kid killers but like the fact that the shitty ppl in the nursing home (the true crime docuseries fans, the sexual harasser, the literal bigot) all like were framed as knowledgeable (k mb not the wannabe cop ) and helpful .... This literally feels propaganda out of an mcu show lol
yes!!! as i was watching it i thought of that mcu show that everyone was talking about. yeah, it's like charlie starts out naive enough to pal around with the two old lady troublemakers who grow their own pot, but then it turns out the pot is just a gateway into A STRING OF CASUAL MURDERS with EXPLOSIVES that they got from their cannabis garden. (just in case it needed to be stated that drugs are bad.) the extent to which this series hates and wants to shit on activists is so over the top. their actual principles are never ever stated -- i don't think there's even any lip service about being anti-war, they just talk about hating wall street guys -- and yet for the sake of those principles that we are told nothing about, they were going to blow up kids. for literally no reason. activists in the 70s based on those aesthetics would have been strictly anti-violence, no? but instead it was like these characters were plopped into this mostly fairly grounded mystery series as if they were straight out of the fucking hunger games. it's the lack of any kind of rationale or remorse for their actions that makes it so outrageous. there is no human story to these two. even their relationship with the guy who turned them in is unclear. (by the way, what's his deal? this cult leader -- joyce and irene don't even object to charlie's use of that term -- who turned his friends in because "it was the right thing to do," but also said he had no choice. how did THAT happen? what was his story?) the writing doesn't spend any time on creating believable moral journeys for these activist characters. our friends just turn from lovable old ladies to irredeemable violent murderers in the blink of an eye. that's what happens when you do drugs and shake your fist at the law, kids!
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i've heard preacher is super good (tho i haven't read it) but i know this guy has also been credited with doing some incredible superman and justice league work, upholding the characters with major respect. props to that for sure, and reading the boys was honestly just a major eye opener on its own. it was *incredible* critique on the military industrial complex and capitalism, front and center with no holds barred.
as far as i know, this guy's (def a fan of gore lmao butt~) also a huge fan of graphic novel style works like miller's dark knight returns.
there's some intensely amazing stories out there. and when they do this kinda outside the norm/status quo rejecting stuff or don't have a 'disney style' lens or happy end, it just hardcore flies over peoples heads because the concept of 'not that simple' or 'artistic freedom' doesn't seem to stick with some folk. worse is that people have a habit of judging a book by its cover/what they hear through the grapevine (much like people) rather than checking it out themselves/making an effort to understand it first hand.
a lot of people don't want to make the effort to properly analyze and hold their own thoughts on stuff, they'd rather just someone else do it for them, parrot the same ideas they first heard, and declare any disagreement or additional debate wrong (even when you flat out prove them wrong)
it's really telling when we get a confession that says, 'i don't understand why x happened' for this kinda stuff (not limited to ennis but stuff clearly made to make the reader think/absent of an author's personal opinion) because it's a perfect example of someone who never learned how to read context or think for themselves.
which is tragic, honestly. and i get it, part of the problem is the education system.
i realized too that i write almost exclusively with unreliable narrators and aim for the same sorta neutral (mostly heheheheh i got some leans) set up the best writers out there tend to give. not just cause i find it hilarious, but cause i try to get inside the characters heads and define them as their own people, rather than just an extension of my hand fit up their ass for my fantasies or being my sock puppet.
i *WISH* we could have more neutral/morally grey *writing* out there with imperfect characters doing imperfect things or even being shitty people *without* people trying to act like it's a reflection/personal declaration of opinions on the writer. because understanding that helps us reflect on our own imperfections and biases, maybe even be a little less judgy on the world around us<3
but not understanding that *kills* good creativity in the absolute worst way.
i can't even count the amount of times i've seen fans go off, dehumanize and insult (sometimes even harass) a writer in the industry literally producing the content they enjoy for the crime of... not producing it *exactly* the way they wanted like a perfectly mind read script (jesus christ people, wtf do we even have fan fiction for if y'all go off and pull that shit). and that's not to say there isn't bad writing from supposed pros out there (there absolutely is *cough*cough*lookin' at you *endgame*mcu*), that's to remind people that these ain't frickin' robots.
they're not even the ones making all the money (if the recent strikes were any indication, always remember that artists/writers getting mistreated by the industry is STILL rampant, ESPECIALLY with big companies like *disney*, but most of hollywood ain't so good either)
they're also *people*, who ain't you, and ain't fuckin' perfect, and they don't gotta be neither. stories can be flawed or not made specifically revolving around our own ideas, and we can still enjoy them, just like we would from another fan fic author.
granted, we may still show favoritism towards our own work (LMAO), but seriously, how damn stuck up you gotta be to denounce everything that ain't made by you or for you or people like you?? (at least have the decency to recognize your own trashhood~<3 WOOOOOOOOOO--)
lmao prolly why i love neutral writing so much. just tells the story/ lesson in depth, leaves us to think for ourselves.
but c'mon y'all, we can do better<3
#garth ennis#writing style#media literacy#writing analysis#fan fiction#writer appreciation#know thy trashhood<3#realism#shades of grey#neutrality
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Iâm already seeing male reactors get very verbally defensive about that scene in She-Hulk where Jennifer describes how, simply as a woman, she has more experience in suppressing rage than Banner because speaking out will get you labelled âhystericalâ, âemotionalâ, âdifficultâ, âtoo much of a feministâ, the list goes on. And if you snap back at the wrong cat-caller, you can get murdered. So now mcu bros are rushing at the opportunity to cry out âthis is just another âmarvel throwing in another woke scene for wokeâs sakeâ. But like...it isnât untrue. Comic nerds are all for female superhero protagonists until she, god forbids, talks about the dynamics of what itâs like to live within the confines of patriarchy.
MCU fans are always clamoring for the social commentary to be more âsubtleâ and not so âin-your-faceâ, just so they can mindlessly enjoy a punchy fighty show and not have to confront any real-world intersections with racism, misogyny, xenophobia, transphobia, all the -isms and -phobias you can imagine. Additionally, even when the social criticisms are embedded into the story, the conflicts are routinely either overlooked or watered-down and discussed at the individual-level as if these are just isolated incidents and not reflective of larger phenomena. Dudebros forget that superhero comic media, from the very beginning, has always been political. A lot of the mainstream characters we know and love today were created in response to the anti-war and peace movements during the seventies in the United States (this is also not to say that there isnât some definite war propaganda and Red Scare-inspired comics out there either).
Comics are teaching grounds for morality, human good, and bad, power, greed, corruption. Comics have been about the social commentary from the get-go. The idea that the government (and by extent society at large) is villainizing and surveilling a specific minority group who carry varying physical and genetic traits contrasting to that of the âideal national subjectâ because of a perceived inherent aggression or difference based on their physical attributes *ahem ahem mutants*...where do you think they got that from?
I literally sat through a dude being like âIN MY EXPERIENCE AS A MAN, THAT IS NEVER THE CASE! IF A WOMAN GETS UPSET AND MAKES A SCENE IN PUBLIC, THE MAN ALWAYS LOOKS LIKE THE BAD GUY BECAUSE IT IS ASSUMED HE DID SOMETHING WRONG. MEN ARE THE ONES WHO CAN NEVER BE ANGRY.â (Obviously for Black men, my argument is different because when Black men express rage, they are viewed as a threat or turned into spectacle, but the person who made this rant was not a Black man, nor was he factoring race into his argument). As if masculinity and gratuitous violence have not become nearly synonymous. When male celebrities are accused of beating their partners, fans run to their defense to say âwell she shouldnât have provoked him.â When Will Smith slapped Chris Rock, the internet rooted for a televised boxing match between the actors/comedians. We all watched the Trump and Hillary debates right, where his belligerent behavior was coddled while she had to maintain composure?
Weâve collectively grown up watching male newscasters, talk show hosts, and reporters make jokes about angry women in sports, in the media or in news reports being on their periods, as a way to minimize the stressful and abusive circumstances, or people, women are subjected to. The world expects women to react to harassment with class and elegance; womenâs anger, Black women especially, is never not mitigated. For male fans to come away from that scene wanting to eye roll is why the commentary is so âin-your-faceâ because a lot of yâall still donât get it! Men are still finding ways to make womenâs issues about them and the âlossâ of their rights. In a world where Brock Turners are able to walk free, are you really trying to argue against this scene? Really? What else do you expect out of a series whose main character is AN ATTORNEY? Yâall are just not going to enjoy this series then, as per usual.
#if you're wondering who the youtuber in question is it is jaby koay from the channel#getjaby#he also has another channel but im not trying to promote his shit#he does reactions to loads of things but i literally want to beat his ass everytime he opens his mouth to make some social hot take bc#you might as well be talking to fucking ricky gervais#he gives major centrist vibes nd he's so fucking condescending nd will jump at any opportunity to mansplain things to his female co-reactor#he's like i'm woke but only to a certain point#anyways fuck dudebros#also are we gonna act like this she hulk scene is more shoe-horned in than that scene in endgame? let's be real#just say you hate hearing about any issues that affects anyone ever who isn't a white man#she hulk#she-hulk#marvel#mcu#mcu rant#tatiana maslany#jennifer walters#hulk#bruce banner#reactors
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You are more than welcome not to like Mobius and I completely understand why you feel that way, but please tag your anti-Mobius posts with things like "anti Mobius" or "Mobius negativity" so people who do like him don't have to see it on our dashes. Thanks! :)
But I don't feel that it is negativity. What Mobius does is objectively evil. If I said that Alexander Pierce tortured and mistreated Bucky would you insist that I tag it as "anti Pierce" or "Pierce negativity"? No of course not. Because I'm just objectively discussing what the character does.
Loki and Mobius have the same relationship as Bucky and Pierce but a lot of the PR and framing encourages viewers to ignore that and to accept Loki's torture as justified and acceptable. It's not. Torture is a vile act that is NEVER justified. Just because the writer of the show is a creepy right winger who thinks otherwise and is encouraging viewers to parrot his vile views doesn't change the facts.
What Mobius does to Loki literally meets the legal definition of torture on multiple counts. Mobius holds Loki prisoner without due process or just cause. He degrades and humiliates and mocks him and obviously delights in this and revels in the power he has over Loki. He calls him a cockroach and pathetic. He acts morally superior to Loki despite the fact that he regularly and remorselessly obliterates entire realities because he believes the people in them are a class of person who don't deserve to exist - i.e. he commits genocide on an inconceivably massive scale. He forcibly detains Loki and makes him labor for him without pay; that's slavery.
When Loki understandably tries to escape his captor he recaptures him and punishes him by locking him in a cell where he beaten in the genital area (a common form of torture used in Russia and China and other authoritarian dictatorships even today) until he is willing to repeat degrading things about himself to try to get the pain to stop.
These are all facts. I didn't make those things up about Mobius. They happened. In canon. I think Mobius could have been a great villain. He's the literal embodiment of the concept of "the banality of evil" and a lot of real life atrocities are committed by people like him. The problem is that many people are presenting his acts as acceptable rather than villainous.
But he's not a good person. And he's not Loki's friend. The fact that people repeat the disgusting messaging in the show that someone who does things (and to the MCU's first canon queer character too btw! This show is no more good representation than Nazi cartoons that showed violence against queer people as funny and justified were) is in any way justified is deeply disturbing to me. People calling Mobius's acts of torture funny or justified or cute literally turns my stomach. But Iâm not asking you to confine your posts praising Mobius to a âpro tortureâ tag or âpro abuseâ tag.Â
The Mobius tag is for discussing the character, not for interpreting him in the way that you personally decide is correct. I am discussing the things Mobius does in canon. And I find them appalling.
Also even when I did tag things like this for criticism (even though stating objective facts isn't a criticism and it should tell you something when people interpret the truth as an attack) "fans" of the show would come and seek out my posts and then harass me. Because what I think people who send messages like this really want is for us to stop sharing our opinions. If you just didn't want to see my posts you could block me. But that's not really what this is about. You aren't afraid YOU will have to see my posts. You're afraid someone else might see them and might actually agree. So you're trying to intimidate and coerce and harass me and others who post similar things into silence.
It's not going to work.
Torture is wrong. Slavery is wrong. Degrading a prisoner for your own amusement is wrong. Obliterating entire universes is wrong. Someone who delights in committing these acts is evil.
I will never stop saying it.
#asks#Mobius#loki tv show#loki show#loki 2021#loki series#loki tv series#Loki series#Loki tv#Loki Season 1#Mobius shut tf up challenge
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First I want to state that I just want to give my very calm take on this whole Yelena aroace discourse, Iâm not trying to attack or erase anyoneâs identity:
Hereâs the thing, that panel that ppl keep saying is proof that sheâs ace? Itâs not about that, theyâre taking it out of context, the whole page gives it a completely different meaning. Itâs more about how Yelena doesnât think sheâs a person, kinda how Natasha says she has no place in the world during the Wanda induced flashbacks in Age of Ultron. Just because thereâs some who want to interpret it as her saying sheâs asexual doesnât mean thatâs what sheâs saying or that itâs canon, thatâs not how that works.
And the writer has said in a very recent (as in earlier this month) blog post that, when Yelena (the one that was born, not the clone) was first created, the terms asexual, aromantic or aroace did not exist, and even if they did, Yelena wouldnât have known about them because Russia is very conservative and if she had hinted at being ANYTHING other than cishet she would have most likely been jailed or persecuted bc thatâs a reality for LGBTQ+ Russians even to this day, and Yelena would have been living in Russia back in the 70s-90s.
She also said that when people ask about her sexuality, she can imagine her being ace making sense and would hope that was the case but she has no say in the matter because she doesnât own the character and her opinions arenât more right than that of the fans. She literally said she gives us her blessing to interpret Yelena however we want and to be kind to one another. She said that at this point her own opinions are pretty much headcanons as well. She also said that if Yelena was to date anyone it would make sense for it to be a woman.
Finally, she also said not to expect a big corporation like Marvel/Disney to give you the representation you deserve because more often than not, they wonât do a good job at it and probably wonât even attempt to unless it benefits them, which is true.
Hereâs a thread that goes into further detail about other things about Yelena that pretty much let you know sheâs never truly been aroace in the comics:
https: //clarabelacqua(.)tumblr(.)com/post/671418171845115904/yelena-is-aroace-why-is-it-so-hard-for-you-to
Iâm not trying to be mean or erase anyoneâs identity. Iâm a lesbian, Iâve had such a hard time finding representation where we donât die or we arenât cheaters or we get a genuinely good ending, I know thatâs still more than aroace people have gotten. I donât want to rain on anyoneâs parade bc I know what itâs like to headcanon a character in a certain way and have others give you shit for it.
I do however want to say that the hate and harassment that can be found under posts that talk about Kate and Yelena is disgusting. You canât tell someone not to ship fictional characters or to do it in x or y way. You canât call someone aphobic just because they donât agree with you, a lot of the ops responding agree that Yelena should be ace in the mcu and they hope you all get that representation. But in all the comment sections Iâve seen itâs like talking to a wall. I get the anger, but thatâs simply not going to make anyone listen to yâall, unfortunately itâs gonna give you a rep. Iâve said this before, people donât think youâre annoying for wanting representation, we all do. People think itâs annoying to be called a bigot or an aphobe for minding their business online. They will respond and be petty and itâs not pretty. They arenât fighting you on Yelena being aroace, a lot of the time itâs an aroace person under their post on the shipping tag being genuinely mean and unnecessarily rude. Maybe it would be better if those who donât like something simply block the tag and avoid those posts, because seriously, theyâre clearly not for you, so maybe donât interact with thoseâŚ
I genuinely hope this doesnât go on for much longer because Yelena is such a good character that deserves all the love she gets, and ultimately, people will headcanon her as they please. It would be so good to simply enjoy that in peace.
.
#I personally don't believe I'm educated enough on the topic of this matter to be able to comment#seeing as I'm not ace or aro or on the asp#*aspectrum#what are ypur guys opinion on this?#aeron answers#aro#ace#aromantic#asexual#aroace#aspec#yelena belova#mcu
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anyways here's a hot take about sharon's ending in fatws ( which, to preface, i hate, so im not justifying it )
we would've never gotten here if the mcu fandom hadn't pushed for it so much, specifically peggy stans and hayley atwell / hayley atwell stans.
to clarify, you all spent years saying that peggy wasn't just steve's love interest, that steve needed to move on, etc, but when steve moved on to sharon ( who btw is his ACTUAL soulmate and has been for 60+ years, not miss " emotionally abusive bigot " 616 peggy carter ), you turned it into a " steve is PEGGY'S man " / " PEGGY is steve's girl " argument. it was y'all that diminished her to that, AND you diminished sharon to that in the process ( because mind you, in terms of things canon to the mcu anymore, sharon did a hell of a lot more in ws + cw than peggy did in tfa, especially for steve ).
you harassed emily vancamp, you signed petitions to get sharon written out of the mcu, etc. YOU GUYS and *only* you guys, made it clear that you didn't want steve to be with anyone if it wasn't peggy or bucky. so then they sent steve back to peggy ( because let's be real, disney was NEVER going through o make stucky canon ) and then all of you complained that " it took away peggy's choice / authority / story / arc / etc ". YOU DID THAT TO HER.
you told marvel that the one person they were trying to set steve up with wasn't good enough, especially compared to peggy, so they gave you what you wanted and then you complained about it like brats because it wasn't ACTUALLY what you wanted, you just wanted to hate on sharon because she wasn't peggy or natasha, as if multiple badass shield agent women can't coexist.
after civil war, the rise of sharon hate grew exponentially with people claiming she MUST be a villain, or that she " feels " evil, or that she was clearly manipulating everything. and again, you harassed emily vancamp and you encouraged hayley atwell's vile behavior with cheers and laughter, and it got so far that they literally had to pull sharon and evc from the films for *five years.*
and now she's back. and again, because of the narrative that you guys perpetuated - that she was evil, a villain, manipulating everyone around her - that's exactly what marvel did. you said she was just a love interest so they did the opposite. and you STILL hate her. emily vancamp is STILL being harassed over the role. and when i say it's majority peggy fans, it is, because the only people i EVER see talking about how terrible sharon is are ones saying she " doesn't live up to queen peggy's legacy ". and while this might not be all peggy fans, im sure some of you are wonderful, it is a whole lot of you.
and now, after getting what you wanted AGAIN, you're complaining about how it " ruins peggy's legacy ". hate to break it to you miss peggy carter was not a good person, no better than sharon as the powerbroker. she hired multiple hydra agents into her organization for operation paperclip ( including zola who was skull's literal right hand man ), gave them completely free range and was oblivious enough in her own organization to let that run free. which means she either allowed it to happen or was an incompetent enough leader that it was able to.
second issue? the fact that she was the director of shield the ENTIRE time isaiah and that group of black men were being tested on, tortured, killed, beaten, and anything else that happened. shield was the most influential government establishment in the mcu pre - winter soldier, not to mention the fact that they're generally known for handling enhanced beings. there's ZERO POSSIBLE WAY she did not know about what was happening. which means she was, again, either an incompetent leader or a racist ( like she is in the comics ). because him being in prison for 30 years means it had to have been a prison that could contain a super soldier, could test competently on super soldiers, and had the ability to erase everything about him. *aka shield.* so either ALL OF THAT happened right under her nose or she stood back and let them do that to him.
sharon didn't ruin peggy's legacy. peggy didn't have a legacy being a good person to begin with. which is FINE because she's a government agent, but it's absolutely NO excuse to use her " golden accomplishments " to justify your vile treatment of sharon carter and it never has been.
#marvel#sharon carter#agent 13#emily vancamp#peggy carter#anti peggy carter#anti hayley atwell#hayley atwell
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10 Anti LO Asks
1. i literally do not get how LO fans HATE PJO when the whole point of the first book was calling out the preconceived notion hades must be the bad guy and instead showing hes actually fine and later hes actually one of the best parents in the whole series?? like is it only because hxp isnt perfect in it and he slept around to have bianca and nico? because its legit myth canon persephone had a boytoy in adonis and minthe was hades' mistress while married so?? idk i think they should love it :/
2. if another writer wanted to create their own retelling of hellenic mythology, what would be some ways to connect with people actually practicing hellenism so as to not make the same mistakes as rachel ? iâm asking because iâve seen people like that frequenting this blog at times.
3. i honestly hate LOs random injects of comedy, especially during what should be serious moments. how are we supposed to feel the gravity of the situation, the tension, the fear, the anger, etc when itll immediately be undercut by some quippy one liner? it feels like RS saw how "funny" people thought mcu movies were and thought "i can do that too!". i get its not as "lighthearted" as she wants, but she cant try to be a "deep social commentary" when she cant let any of it be taken seriously.
4. WHAT. DID RACHEL JUST. COMPLETELY REWRITE THE ASCLEPIUS MYTH TO DRAG APOLLO??? I AM SCREECHING
5. Your discord must have a lot of anti-lo art, are there members with a tumblr account? If so, would you tell us?
From OP: There are a good number of people with tumblrs there but Iâm not going to share any yet. The last time I shared accounts of people I was associated with or just enjoyed, they got harassed. I will ask if I could share some of their accounts though.
-----FP Spoilers/Mention-----
6. FP spoiler 189: How could you do my girl, Eris, so bad like that Smythe? Good lord her design is atrocious, and wouldnât it be better if she was the daughter of Nyx and Erebus given her design? How tf did Zeus and Hera have a child with wings?? Eris, honey, Iâm so sorry youâve been done so dirty, you deserve better than being a bald version of Hera
7. FP spoiler Episode 189: Oof, I have a lot to say about Eris.
First of all: Why is her design so freaking ugly? She looks like an apple with some limbs and wings. This is such an uncreative way to hint at her mythos. (Get it? She has an apple-head because she used an apple to cause chaos once, isn't that clever???)
Second, why is she here??? Legit, why did we need to bring her into the story??? Why did we need yet another plot-twist??? How much longer are we going to drag this trial out???? What, is Kronos going to take the stand next???
Third of all, why exactly is everyone so intimidated by her? She doesn't seem that strong and the only thing she's done so far is glare at people and demand everyone say what she wants them to say like a spoiled brat. Hades says they're afraid she'll air out the gods' dirty laundry, but it looks like she's doing that right now, even when they try and appease her? If you're so scared of her running her mouth, why not gag her or something and lock her away in Tartarus? You did it to Kronos and he's a freaking titan, you cannot tell me locking this snot-nosed apple-bird up would be more difficult.
Fouthly, are we seriously gonna blame Eris for Persephone's AOW now? Rachel noooo, the AOW is the only thing that made this version of Persephone interesting, don't take it away from her and make it another woman's fault!
Side note: Demeter being allowed to go off on dirtbag Zeus and his brothers was the only good thing in this chapter. In fact, Demeter was the only good thing about this chapter. She deserves so much better.
From OP: So true, Demeter! Plus, imagine having the potential to be queen of the mortal realm but couldnât because Hades wanted the volcanoes?
8. FP SPOILERS
///
PLEASE SDKWJBWBSBZKWNWS CHAPTER 189 IS SO FUNNY ERIS LOOKS LIKE GOD-DAMNED CHICKEN I CRIED OUT LOUD WHEN I SAW HER HHSJWJQBWJQJQHHQ
Rachel never disappoints with her designs they're so hilarious
From OP: B A L D
9. Fp/ SERIOUSLY?! P just has to be perfect now even the aow is not her fault. Flawless uwu self insert. She owns nothing now, not even her body or feelings. Eris is much better fitted for dreadful queen. P has no agency on her own... She does nothing by herself of course she is queen perfect you can't have faults if you don't do bad abd you don't do bad things if you don't do anything at all....
From OP: No because this made me mad. I knew the feeling was going to be blamed but I didnât expect a whole ass goddess to be behind it.
10. Fast Pass Mention //
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.Oh wow turns out that Persephone is so perfect and special that she's been blessed with beauty twice and that's why she's so beautiful and every single male character loves her and wants her
From OP: That part made me cringe. Like bro, we get it. Sheâs beautiful. You donât have to justify everyone simping for her by saying she got double blessed with beauty.
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Although there is critique to be made about Anthony, fans need to take accountability and responsibility for how they engage with media. As absurd as that sounds, I need people to actually listen.
I just read a tweet that said, "How rude of the actor. I clung to ships when I was in the closet Bc I craved representation. so glad Mark gets it, he a truly good ally."
This is what I meant yesterday when I said fans will dehumanize actors (to further their own goals).
"How rude?"
What is rude about Mackie wanting better m/m platonic relationships represented on screen? What? Because a person is no longer able to vicariously live through the character they're representing or who a fan paired them with?
It's the entitlement for me.
And that may sound wrong to say about the LBGTQ community, but there are levels to this shit when you add race to it, especially when they add in Mark Hamill. Mark was just portraying a character--one he cared about, but he wasn't trying to help influence the perception and dynamics of a group.
As a lead, Anthony wants to allow black men to have platonic relationships with other male characters without it being sexualized or romanticized because, let's be honest, most male friendships on screen (and many in real life) are toxic. If this person can get validation from fictional characters being gay, doesn't that say a black kid or black man can get validation from seeing a fictional black man be vulnerable and have close relationships with other male characters without it being sexual?
It's not like these fans cared about Sam until it was time to pair Bucky with a new man and now it's the responsibility of these actors to reinforce these fans' head canons???
Like, I completely fucking get where people are coming from at times with these criticisms, however, fandom and actors/crew were NEVER supposed to mix like this. I don't know if it's because of the increasing popularity of cons or the accessibility of people apart of the given show or movie, but the idea that actors and crew can't speak their mind thus them being "rude" for clarification and explaining the narrative is bonkers.
Head canons are GREAT! But when you're seeking validation from some form of media for representation that they've never indicated they're setting up, you've set yourself up for failure. How is anyone disappointed that Mackie said, "These are two men who are close, but it's not romantic--it's platonic."
Back then, fans fully embraced the fact that our shit wasn't canon and we were fine with that. Like, yeah, there is a lot of nuances and shit. I get that, but this entitlement in trying to dictate the narrative and color everything as queer baiting is wild as fuck and diminishes actual queer baiting.
I literally spoke to someone who said queer baiting is whatever a queer person thinks it is and that is wrong. This take completely muddles the meaning of queer baiting and, consequently, decontexualizes everything to give power to fan meaning. As a result, this is why some fans are upset when they faves they've coded as a gay man ends up with a woman. They've spent so much time ignoring canon and living in their own reality that when the show actually addresses romance, it feels homophobic to them.
Queer baiting is intentional for the most part. And if someone is always going with their meaning of something, they're going to think someone is "rude" and see anything in contradiction to their beliefs as homophobia.
There is this huge dishonesty about what goes on in the community and acting as if fans are always on their best behavior. Regardless if its m/m, m/f, or f/f fans can and have harassed actors about their ships. Fans have behaved poorly. Fans aren't telling these actors about these ships in a wink wink sort of way or just sharing something, they're constantly seeking out validation and, in return, are trying to influence the narrative. And when that doesn't happen, "WE WERE QUEER BAITED!!!"
These actors, writers, and show runners are being put in an impossible position. If they don't validate a fan's feelings, "they're rude and homophobic." Then if they keep with their narrative that doesn't support the fan interpretation, "They're rude and homophobic." If the validate the fans feelings and stay on course, its queer baiting. "But they said they shipped x and y!!!"
That twitter user projected their personal struggle onto Mackie and made him responsible for their feelings. In the process, she completely disregarded his personhood as a black person. And that's the shit I'm talking about.
If people truly understood that how you interact with media in a non canon way is your personal relationship that no one can interfere on, most wouldn't be upset by Mackie's words. Because shit that happens in fandom has shit all to do with canon most of the time.
One last point, for those who keep claiming that this was just an innocent little fandom thing that Mackie shat on, shall I remind y'all of Endgame???
People convinced themselves that Steve and Bucky were going to end up via a subtle nod and were mad as fuck when Steve ended up with Peggy. There was literally nothing to support this idea except head canons and actors going the Mark Hamill route of supporting fan feelings. After Endgame, their was fucking articles and pissed off fans because they were "queer baited", despite literally nothing in the narrative supporting this.
People can talk about tropes for days, yet a prime example of the MCU doing whatever the fuck they want is Steve and Natasha. You can lay out all the tropes you want, but they didn't go down that route. After having them kiss, change in front of each other, run away together several times, imply Steve had a hard on due to Natasha, etc THEY NEVER TOUCHED ON THEM ACTUALLY BEING TOGETHER. In literally the next movie after winter soldier, Natasha gets involved with Bruce.
They're always presented as good friends who genuinely care about each other.
It's fine if people ship Sam and Bucky. It's fine to want the MCU to actually explore their dynamic. What is not fine is to disregard and ignore canon to peddle your fantasies, and then claim you were baited because you didn't like the outcome.
The fandom at large can be so fucking dishonest and that shit is so appalling.
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I donât know why so many people assume that popularity of a ship or a character has anything to do with their quality. Or that âbeing more popularâ automatically makes a fictional couple/person better than others. Like... sure. Some things get more recognizable and loved, because theyâre just that good. But very often the number of fans has absolutely nothing to do with: âhow interesting this character is?â or âhow great is the chemistry between these two people?â. Sometimes things just... are popular.
Thatâs why I donât understand it when other people try to criticize Sambucky for having a smaller fandom and acting like no one cares about them, because there are some different ships with more fans. Of course there are. Obviously. But these other ships were going to win this nonexistent competition from the start. We all understand why Sambucky doesnât have more fans, more stories on Ao3, more art. (If you say you donât know âwhyâ, youâre either: very young, very dumb, or straight up lying.) And it has nothing to do with how much potential their relationship has.
Sambucky is not some new ship that came out ouf nowhere in March 2021, but no one thought about them before, because they were not interesting enough to get the attention. People liked them way before tfatws started. Itâs been gaining fans and momentum since 2014 (looking from the MCU perspective), just more slowly, since not everyone is capable of seeing them together.
Because it doesnât matter how dramatic yet hilarious their first meeting is from the perspective of their show. Or how thrilling it is that Sam was looking for Bucky for almost two years. Or how they jumped into joking, teasing, and protecting each other in Civil War even though they only just started fighting on the same side. Or how they are constantly put in the same scenes even when there is no reason for it. It doesnât matter how much they touch each other, look at each other, care for each other. Or how close they are compared to many other, more loved duos in the MCU. Or how great the chemistry is between both actors and their characters. Or how multiple people involved in production said that what they have is definitely âloveâ (no matter how you define it).
Many people will still look at all that and donât even consider them a possibity. And say that they are more like brothers/besties. And that Sam is obviously straight. Or that Sam is not that interesting. And that âwe cannot ignore the importance of platonic male friendshipsâ as if the whole MCU hasnât been built at that exact type of a relationship. Sam and Bucky could literally kiss on screen and confess their love and many fans would still complain that they would prefer Bucky to be with someone else. Or that it was forced and didnât feel natural, so they still wonât ship them after all.
People who actually like Sambucky already know all of that. Theyâve known for years. Itâs everyone else that pretends like âSam and Bucky donât have a big fandom, because they are not an interesting couple and fans just donât see that kind of relationship for them, sorryâ.
And finally...
Would I want to see the Sambucky and Sam Wilson tags filled with more beautiful art and interesting stories? Sure. Of course. But do I want Sambucky to have more fans just to be a better competition for more popular ships? No. What would be the point of that? So I can brag about it in debates with some morons on Twitter? âWell, my ship has more fans than yours, so Iâm cooler and I win?â Thatâd be so dumb ;-; Even if many people really act like thatâs a valid argument to make.
Also... Bigger fandoms donât necessarily mean âbetter contentâ or ânicer peopleâ. From what Iâve seen theyâre just the same as smaller ones (in some cases) or just so much worse (in most cases). Because larger groups of people statistically attract more weirdos and bigots. Or more children - who may have good intentions, but can still act badly, because theyâre too young to fully understand what theyâre doing and saying.
Naturally, at the end of the day I want to see more fans realizing how good Sam and Buckyâs relationship is and enjoying it just as I do, but thatâs it. I donât want to have my favourite ship winning the first place in some popularity contest that other people made up in their minds, just to later share the fandom with a bunch of assholes who harass people for liking some less popular couples. I have different priorities.
#sam wilson#samuel thomas wilson#james bucky barnes#bucky barnes#captain america#captain america sam wilson#the falcon#white wolf#winter soldier#tfatws#the falcon and the winter soldier#sambucky#sam x bucky#winterfalcon#mcu#marvel
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Watching people genuinely believing that l0kius will be canon in s2, I feel bad for them theyâre just setting themselves up for disappointment
The way I perfectly know who you are talking about (especially if you are referring to twitter)...
I think the most absurd and out-of-logic thing he could come up with was that the "For all time. Always!" is actually a secret love message between Loki and Mobius, and I'm just... no? No really, I rewatched the series a lot of times, and Loki and Mobius never NEVER say to each other that line, not even once and they never are even on the point to say it. Loki literally NEVER prounounces it in the whole series, and Mobius says it frequently as a "salute" to Ravonna and B15, so, according to his logic, Mobius already said "I love you" to both Ravonna and B15 a good number of times (Go for it, Mobius!).
But the craziest part is that he actually took the motto used in the brainwashing propaganda of a fascist-like organization (remember B15 looking terrified at the propaganda posters in episode 4. And yes, "For all time. Always!" is on these posters too), and twisted it into some lovey dovey kind of thing. I mean, when they stole the "Love is dagger" line, they still stole and decontestualized it to fit it in their narrative, but at least they used a line that is actually about love.
Is it that obvious đ
the tweets are free entertainment but he has such a big following on twitter and I think a lot of them really believe what he says so itâs his followers I really worry about because theyâll be genuinely expecting Owen and Tom to touch lips in s2 and then when it doesnât happen theyâll blame the series for queerbaiting them instead of the person on twitter who made several reaches which made absolutely no sense in order to somehow convince themselves and others l0kius is secretly endgame.
and listen I want to make it absolutely clear I am not against shipping non canon ships, but there comes a point when this becomes questionable. Itâs like shipping Jimmy Woo with Scott Lang and expecting them to get married in Quantumainia, itâs absurd. Would I read fan fiction about Jimmy and Scott? Probably. Would I expect them to become a canon ship in the mcu? Hell no but theyâd probably stand more a chance of becoming canon than l0kius đ and I know Iâm coming across really anti but at the same time I donât think itâs wrong or anti to be realistic and say thereâs no way that ship will be canon so stop getting yours and your followers hopes up because your only going to create disappointment, which will likely turn into anger and result in the actors and creators of the show getting more harassment for âqueerbaitingâ
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My Problem with Loki
Loki is a character beloved by many people. He has been for a decade now, although some people who read comics before the Marvel Cinematic Universe was a thing were fans of him long before the first Thor came out. Over the years since his appearance in that movie the character has gone through a lot of changes, evolving from a villain to an anti-hero both in the MCU and in the comics, the latter even killing off his original incarnation to reincarnate him in a younger body resembling Tom Hiddleston in the hopes that the comics could capitalize on his popularity in order to sell more books. That move, unfortunately, did not bear fruit, with Lokiâs solo series being canceled after only five issues. However, Loki remained popular in the movies, so much so that when he was killed off in Infinity War, people were pissed.
As a result of his enduring popularity, Kevin Feige and company decided to give Loki his own solo series on Disney+ when the decision was made to create a string of MCU tie-in shows to supplement the movies, and boost subscription numbers to Disneyâs new streaming service. Fans of the character rejoiced. Finally, our favorite character was going to be in the spotlight, and not be merely a supporting character for Thor and hopefully not a butt monkey for the Avengers like he was in the third act of the movie of the same name. WandaVision and The Falcon and The Winter Soldier had previously had well-received and successful debuts on that same platform, and it was hoped that Loki would do the same. Loki turned out to be the most successful of the Disney+ MCU shows that have come out so far, scoring highest in the ratings. As of this writing, it holds a 93% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and an 8.5 on IMDb.
Those numbers, however, donât reflect the entire audience and there were a lot of people who were not altogether happy with the product we received. Many people who had been hardcore fans of Loki since Tom Hiddleston first put on the horned helmet were not pleased, myself included. Â
The show wasnât all bad. It did set up the multiverse, introduced Kang, introduced Mobius. The special effects were outstanding, a lot of the gags were hilarious, and we did get some character development from Loki before the spotlight fell away from him and he became all about panting after the real main character...more on that in a few. Â
So many things, however, were wrong. Â
If you liked the show, thought it was perfect, and were a fan of the romance, thatâs perfectly fine. There is no such thing as a wrong opinion on a work of fiction. Everyone has their interpretations, everyone has their likes and dislikes, and there is nothing wrong with liking the show. There is also nothing wrong with not liking the show. This is a concept that people on both sides of the debate fail to understand, and I have witnessed flame wars, harassment from individuals on both sides, harassment of creators on social media from both sides, and various bits of biphobia, homophobia, transphobia, and other assorted types of phobias on display. I have seen people accuse people who have different opinions on the show than them of ânot being a true Loki fanâ and stating that people who have certain interpretations of the character donât âtruly know Lokiâ.
Iâm not here to do that, and I assure you, if you liked the show, thatâs fine. Youâre allowed to. Iâm allowed to not like it, and Iâm allowed to explained why I didnât like it just as youâre allowed to explain why you did. As long as both of us are being respectful, expressing an opinion is good. There is expressing an opinion and offering constructive criticism, however, and then there is namecalling, trolling, and having a tantrum and accusing someone of being âaggressiveâ when they donât share the same opinion you do.
There is a huge difference between saying âI find the character of Sylvie to be problematic, and here is whyâ and âI think fans of Sylvie are sick and need therapyâ, and people need to learn the difference between the two. Unfortunately, you have people who have become very protective of their favorite characters and tend to take any criticism leveled at said characters personally. Itâs basically âYou donât like them? Well then you donât like me, and since you donât like me, I donât like you.â Which is, frankly, a dangerous mentality to have. We are talking about fictional characters, not real people, and there is no need to jump to the defense of someone who does not exist. It is those people who tend to demonstrate that they have unstable personalities and immaturity, and they are the ones I have started blocking on Twitter because, being an adult woman, I donât have the patience to deal with immature nonsense like that.
So, if you read this and then decide you want to hunt me down to give me a piece of your mind, tell me that Iâm not a âtrueâ fan of Loki, and accuse me of whatever, donât bother. This piece isnât here for that. Itâs here because I wanted to compile my thoughts and feelings in a way that would better for me to articulate. Itâs more or less a venting mechanism, purely for my benefit. If someone else gets something out of it, fine. If the creators of the show happen to see it, which is very unlikely because A) Iâm not exactly going to push it onto them on their social media to get them to read it and B) they already get bombarded with tons of opinions on the show on a daily basis and arenât going to care about one more voice added to the mix, even one who has basically compiled a novel, then alright.
And it is a novel, because I have a lot to say about Loki. I have been a huge fan of the character since long before Tom Hiddleston began playing him. My first encounter with Marvelâs Loki came in the form of the X-Men comics, specifically The Asgardian Wars run. Itâs available in trade, and you should check it out. I read that run when I was around 10 years old, and I enjoyed Loki as the bad guy in the two stories that make up the collection. The first has him creating a special wish fountain that has a monkeyâs paw effect in that it imbues mortals with special gifts and powers, and has the potential to make Earth a better place, but at the cost of killing every magical person and being on Earth. The X-Men and Alpha Flight find out about this after a plane piloted by the wife of one of the X-Men happens to crash in the general location the fountain is located. The two teams go to investigate, Shaman and Snowbird who are both magical beings begin dying, itâs discovered Loki created the fountain in order to score brownie points with The Ones Who Sit Above In Shadow (a pantheon of deities who are basically the Gods to the Asgardians), and after a lengthy battle Loki is defeated, he shuts down the fountain under pressure from The Ones, and slinks back to Asgard with tail between his legs.
In the second story, set after the heroes of Earth had helped Asgard defeat Surtur, Lokiâs attention is caught by Storm, who at the time was depowered. He kidnaps her and brings her to Asgard intending to use her to replace Thor as the Goddess of the Storm, and use her as a pawn to, what else, conquer Asgard and seize the throne. Â
I really enjoyed Loki then, and felt sorry that he never appeared in any other X-Men story, not even in an issue of the New Mutants, and that team boasted an actual Valkyrie (Danielle Moonstar) as one of its members. I was a kid at the time and read pretty much exclusively X-Men since those were the books my father purchased for me. I never felt right about asking him for other books since we were a family with money struggles and I didnât want to be more of a burden by requesting Thor or Avengers comics--that, and I just didnât find Thor or the Avengers all that interesting at the time, a sentiment shared by a lot of people until the first Iron Man made us actually care about Tony Stark. I wouldnât have an opportunity to start reading more comics featuring Loki until I was an adult and able to visit comic book stores on my own. I read several runs that featured him as a character, including Ragnarok, the Broxton, OK run where Loki first appeared as a woman, Dark Reign, and finally Siege. I also went back and read Walt Simonsonâs legendary run on The Mighty Thor, which I highly recommend. Â
Suffice it to say, Iâve been a fan of the character for a long time, and in fact when Tom Hiddleston was cast in the role for Thor, I remember thinking that he was too young. But then I figured it was Hollywood, of course theyâre going to deage Loki so that he appears closer in age to his adopted brother in contrast to the comics pre-Siege where Loki was often drawn to look like he was as old as Odin and therefore could be Thorâs uncle or even father as opposed to brother. Â
Over the years I grew to enjoy the MCUâs version of the character, enjoy Tom Hiddleston in the role, and like most other people was greatly saddened by his death in Infinity War. Like other fans, I looked forward to his solo series and had high hopes for it. Hopes that were, unfortunately, dashed.
It Was Rushed
In the MCU, it took Loki years to go from troubled young god, to villain, to ambivalent ally, to anti-hero, to hero. Literally, years. Months had passed between the end of Thor and the beginning of Avengers during which Loki endured who-knows-what at the hands of Thanos. We donât know exactly what still. The Loki series didnât answer that, I guess because they didnât want to devote precious screentime to an interesting backstory for what was supposed to be the main character when they could focus on something else instead. That something else will be elaborated on.
In Episode 1, Loki is still the villain from Avengers, something he would have remained as into The Dark World. It would take him being in Asgardâs prisons for a year and then him accidentally getting his adopted mother Frigga killed in order for him to begin to do a heel-face turn. From this, we can clearly see that a transition from ax-crazy bad guy to anti-hero is not going to happen overnight. For this person I shall call Ragnarok Loki, it was a process that took time. He suffered a complete mental breakdown while in Asgardâs prison, a fragile emotional state that was compounded by the anger and massive guilt he felt at Friggaâs death. Â
Even after that, he still hadnât completely abandoned his villainous ways. At the end of The Dark World we find out that after faking his supposed death earlier in the movie, Loki has assumed Odinâs form and taken his place on Asgardâs throne. In Ragnarok, Loki is still sitting on the throne in Odinâs form, and shows no indication at all that he feels any remorse for giving his adopted father amnesia, stripping away his magic, and abandoning him on Earth to whatever fate he might meet. Loki remains a selfish bastard throughout Ragnarok until the third act, after Thor had treated him to a taste of his own medicine by sticking a taser on him and then giving him a speech about becoming predictable and complacent. Â
Lokiâs arc was one that spanned four movies and six years, since in-universe there were a couple of years between The Dark World and Ragnarok. That meant that his character development took actual time and was realistic. It was one of the things that drew people to the character, the fact that he had a very relatable and believable redemption arc.
Compare that to Episode 1. In less than a day he goes from being the Loki that we saw in Avengers, batshit crazy, selfish, callous, and untrusting, to making personal confessions to a man he had just met only a couple hours previously and agreeing to help the organization that had arrested, stripped, imprisoned, tried, and almost executed him.
What?
I will give the show this: In Episode 2, he shows that heâs still up to his old tricks when he feeds Mobius and the agents all that horsecrap about how a Loki works in the Ren Faire tent, and then revealing that he plans to take over the TVA when he confronts his variant in the futuristic Wal-Mart. The weeping confession to Mobius, that I canât really get over. How do you go from haughty, arrogant, and âtrust is for children and dogsâ, to âI donât enjoy hurting peopleâ in just a couple of hours? The show never indicated that it was a manipulation tactic on Lokiâs part. Instead, we were basically told to believe that they became friends just that fast. That emotionally stunted and closed-off Loki made a connection with another person in a matter of hours. Makes sense. Donât get me wrong, I like Mobius and feel he makes a good foil for Loki. I hope to see more of him in the future. I just have a tough time finding their friendship all that believable.
This would not be the only relationship in the show that happened too fast that we were forced to just buy, which leads me to Sylvie.
Sheâs the variant that the TVA had been hunting, that Mobius recruited Loki to help capture. And while I normally hate it when people ascribe a certain label onto a new female character because reasons (ones that are usually misogynistic), I think it fits rather well in Sylvieâs case.
Enter The Mary Sue
Mary Sue is a term that gets thrown around a lot. To sum up the meaning in very simple terms, it refers to a character who is too perfect to be believable. Mary Sues are often author-self inserts in fiction, theyâre usually the love interest for at least one male hero and itâs usually the male hero the author will admit to having a crush on, their scenes usually are presented much more descriptively than those of the other characters, the story will revolve around them often at the expense of the development and plots for the other characters of the story, and theyâre presented as beautiful, powerful, intelligent, beautiful, special, strong, beautiful, and desirable. Yes, beautiful is on the list more than once, and itâs deliberate.
The term comes from an old Star Trek parody fanfic, and while it is usually applied to original characters in fan fiction, the term has been used to describe characters in canon media as well. Some examples of characters who have been described as Mary Sues would include Bella from the Twilight books, Felicity from the show Arrow, Jaenelle Angelline from Anne Bishopâs The Black Jewel novels, Sookie Stackhouse from True Blood, Rey from the last Star Wars trilogy, and Jean Grey from the X-Men comics. Note I do not necessarily agree that those characters are Mary Sues, I have merely heard these characters referred to as Mary Sues, and when I look at them objectively I can kind of see where the accusations come from. Some other terms that can apply are Creatorâs Pet and of course Author Self-Insert. Not all Mary Sues are Author Self-Inserts, but a lot of them are. Also, not all characters who can be labeled Mary Sues are female, though they often are. The male version of a Mary Sue is called a Marty Stu, and a couple of characters Iâve seen get ascribed that label include Harry Potter, Daemon Sadi from Anne Bishopâs The Black Jewel novels, Edward from Twilight, and Red Hulk from Marvel Comics. Even Batman and Wolverine havenât been immune from the Marty Stu stamp, although you can argue that it does apply in their cases especially depending on whoâs writing them. Sometimes it is painfully obvious they are author self-inserts...the aforementioned Bella is a good example. Others, you can only speculate on. And while there are theories going around that Sylvie is someoneâs self-insert, we donât have definitive proof of that.
There are good arguments, however, for her being labeled a Mary Sue and Creatorâs Pet.
First are her powers. In the show we are told that Sylvie taught herself magic, especially her ability to âenchantâ, the power to get into the minds of others and manipulate them. The fact that she taught herself would indicate that her education and skill in using magic should be lacking, right? She should not be as good as, say, someone who learned magic from his foster mother who herself was taught by Asgardian witches?
Yet in the show, Sylvie not only runs circles around Loki magically wise, she even teaches him a few tricks. This is startlingly in contrast to the comics. Lokiâs Sylvie is partially based on the character Sylvie Lushton from the Young Avengers, a bad guy who was once a normal girl whom Loki imbued with powers before his death at the hands of the Sentry during the events of 2010âs Siege storyline. In the comics, Loki not only gave Sylvie her powers, but he was the one who taught her how to use them. Now, of course things in the MCU are not going to follow the way things are in the comics. MCU Loki is nowhere near as old as comics Loki and has so far not demonstrated the ability to give other beings powers. And MCU Sylvie is a composite of Sylvie Lushton and Lady Loki, which is also problematic, but weâll get to that.
But the point is that Sylvie had no training. Her magic is some improvised slapped-together stuff that at best she picked up here and there and at worst she just pulled out of her ass. Now, knowing that, weâre supposed to buy that she can mop the floor magically wise with someone who was formally trained by a sorceress? And that furthermore, she can school him as well?
To make up for her lack of experience and knowledge, Loki is nerfed. Power wise and intellectually wise, he is nerfed. In Thor and Avengers Loki is smart, well-spoken, and a master manipulator. At one point he is able to turn all of the Avengers against one another, and while his magic has never been anywhere near the level it was at in the comics pre-Siege (after his resurrection, he was powered down and is currently nowhere near the powerhouse he had been prior to 2011) he was able to pull off some impressive displays of skill nonetheless. Shape shifting, illusion casting, it was a good repertoire. Â
In Episode 3, however...well, he does use teleportation to some impressive affect during his fight with Sylvie, but he still doesnât get the upperhand. And he should. Loki is a better trained fighter, better trained in sorcery, and realistically should have at the least managed to incapacitate his variant. He doesnât however, because the moment he meets Sylvie his IQ drops about 20 points. He falls easily for her tricks, makes laughable plans, gets drunk and draws too much attention when he knows that is a bad idea, and manages to get them both stuck on a moon that will soon be dust courtesy of the rogue planet about to crash into it. Loki has made some blunders in the various MCU movies heâs been in, mostly due to his own arrogance and tendency to underestimate his foes, but heâs not that stupid. In fact, in The Dark World he screams at Thor and calls him an idiot for drawing attention to themselves by hijacking an elven ship and crashing into every column and statue within a fifty-foot radius.
Where exactly is that smart, calculating, more careful Loki we know from the films? Heâs been transformed and dumbed down, in an attempt to prop Sylvie up. Itâs a tired trope, making the male character a dumbass in order to make the female character look good. Well, I should say male-presenting and female-presenting characters in this case, but their supposed gender fluidity really is not represented well and itâs completely contradicted later on, but weâll get to that.
Anyway, making the male character stupid in order to make the female character look better by comparison is not empowering. Itâs insulting. It implies that women are not smart or capable enough to meet men on equal footing, that the only way we can shine is not by virtue of our own strengths, but merely by making us look better than the men.
She doesnât just outshine Loki intellectually and power wise, she outshines him period. The show from Episode 3 on becomes about Sylvie. She is the showâs main focus, and Loki? Heâs relegated to the role of supporting character in the series thatâs named after him. Supporting character, and love interest. From Episode 3 on, the show might as well be called Sylvie.
Now, some people will say that since Sylvie is a Loki, the show was indeed focusing on Loki. The problem is, the show is very inconsistent as to whether or not Sylvie really is a Loki or a different person entirely. I will explain more later, but the writers seem to change Sylvieâs identity to suit whatever narrative they want to present to the audience, including the pre-Pixar Disney romance they foist upon us.
The Romance, and why some find it gross
One major characteristic of the Mary Sue is that she always draws the romantic and sexual interest of the main male character, who may or may not be a Marty Stu himself. Oftentimes heâs not, and Loki does not fit the criteria of a Marty Stu by any stretch of the imagination. These romances always happen fast with little to no buildup. There is no what writers of romance call âslow burnâ, itâs just throw Mary at the male character, hook them up, and get the audience to buy it. Basically, itâs reminiscent of the romance stories in the Classical Era Disney animated films. Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella all fall madly in love with their princes within minutes of meeting them. Thereâs no getting to know each other, there is no preamble, there is no slow courtship, no real drama to speak of. Itâs basically Love At First Sight or True Love. This trend continues even into the Disney Renaissance. In The Little Mermaid, Ariel is willing to make a deal with a witch to give up her fins for a prince she hasnât even spoken to yet. He doesnât even know she exists, and she leaves her home and family behind, gives up her voice, all for a mere shot at hooking up with him.
Thatâs not love, thatâs lust. Thatâs hormones overruling your brain, and itâs an insulting trope, one that feminists have railed against for years. Disney has made a little progress. The movie Frozen took the mickey out of the Love At First Sight/True Love trope with the song âLove Is An Open Doorâ and the prince Anna wanting to marry turning out to be a major sleazebag who just wants to use her, but we still only have three Disney princesses (Elsa, Moana, and Merida) who have never had love interests and two (Anna and Rapunzel) whose love stories come close to being slow burns, out of 12 official Princesses. Thereâs still a long way to go, and boy is there a major step backwards in Loki. Â
In Episode 3, Loki fights Sylvie and they end up on Lamentis 1. Sylvie spends a good portion of the time insulting and trying to kill Loki, and Loki finds himself having to defend himself from her. That changes once they get on the train going to the Arc. After sneaking aboard the train using a disguise and a flimsy story, the two Lokis sit in a booth, where Loki proceeds to drink champagne. It is then that, out of nowhere, the conversation shifts from how Sylvie learned her powers to the topic of love.
Why? Why would you bring that up in conversation with someone who was doing her best to kill you a couple hours prior?
Then Loki makes things worse by asking Sylvie if she has a beau waiting for her. Why? It doesnât make sense. The two of you are at each otherâs throats, sheâs done her best to kill you, neither of you trusts the other, and, completely out of left field, you decide to basically ask âSo...are you single?â
Now, enemies to lovers is a trope that can work when done right. Typically, itâs a very subtle, slow progression that the audience witnesses over time in a novel, movie or television series. Weeks and even months will go by in the narrative during which the two people go from wanting each other dead to developing feelings for one another. Thereâs usually a âwill they, wonât they periodâ that lasts for some time thatâs full of teases and flirting before the couple does hook up and gives the audience the resolution. Done in this way, enemies to lovers can work.
This...this is not the right way to do enemies to lovers. Within a couple of hours Loki and Sylvie go from hatred and doing their damnedest to stabbing one another in the backs, to having a connection that causes a nexus event?
By the way, that nexus event makes no sense. In Episode 2, it is established that it is impossible to create a nexus event in an apocalypse. It is why Sylvie was able to avoid capture by the TVA for so long. In fact, just minutes prior to the two of them almost dying in Episode 4, Sylvie flat-out says that she figured out that she needed to hide in apocalypses because she discovered she didnât create a nexus event when she hid in them.
Now the two of them are able to create a nexus event in the midst of an apocalypse? Why? Their âconnectionâ isnât going to lead to any consequences...they were about to die. No one else need never have known about the âmomentâ the two of them shared. Itâs very confusing and the only purpose it really serves is to paint Loki and Sylvie as soulmates, which doesnât make sense in the context of the show. The concept of soulmates is that for every person, there is someone out there they are predestined to be with. Loki is a show that, at the core of it, is about rejecting predestination and embracing free will. In that context, the idea of soulmates is ludicrous and contradictory to the message that we make our own destiny. This is why True Love is unrealistic, and I hate to break it to you romantics out there, but Love At First sight does not exist.
Infatuation At First Sight exists, but that is not Love, no matter what your hormones are telling you. Love takes time to evolve, and it takes work to maintain. It sure as hell doesnât happen after less than 12 hours of knowing each other, during which a huge chunk of time was devoted to trying to manipulate, outsmart, and murder the person youâre supposedly in love with. No one falls in love in less than 12 hours, period, unless itâs a Classical Era Disney animated movie. They basically turned Loki into a big Disney Romance trope. I have a very hard time buying that Loki, who we have established is emotionally stunted and closed off, would form a love connection in just a few hours, especially with someone who was doing her best to murder him in that timespan.
That is not the only reason this relationship is problematic. The term âSelfcestâ has been thrown around, and a lot of defenders of this particular ship claim that the term was very recently made up in social media for the sole purpose of badmouthing this particular romance. That is not the case. Selfcest is a term that has existed among fiction writers for years, itâs just that more people have recently become aware of it thanks to this show. The trope has been used and referred to in various works of fiction, especially in fantasy and science fiction where cloning, alternative universes, and magic occur. A lot of the insults I get from people who canât stand that I donât like the romance basically go along the lines of saying selfcest doesnât exist. No, it doesnât...in reality. But this isnât reality, is it? Itâs fiction. Itâs a fictional world where such a thing could be possible, and even in works where itâs not possible itâs often alluded to.
In A Song Of Ice And Fire, we have the infamous twincest relationship going on between Cersei and Jamie Lannister, and it is heavily implied that sleeping with her brother is the closest that Cersei can get to banging herself and that is why she does it. Jamie is basically everything she feels she should have been and was denied due to being born a woman. In fact, in later books when he reunites with her after having been away from Kingâs Landing for over a year, during which time heâs grown a beard and shaved his head, Cersei no longer finds him as attractive since they no longer look as much alike.
And with advances in cloning, selfcest might be possible in the future. We already have sex robots, and people with money are capable of making those robots look like themselves. There is nothing stopping them from doing it.
Knowing all of this, the argument of âselfcest doesnât exist!â falls flat. And it especially falls flat when youâre referring to a fictional universe where a large purple man once killed off half the population of said universe with a snap of his fingers, where scientists turn into giant green monsters, the Norse gods not only exist but regularly interact with people on Earth, and thereâs such a thing as a Sorcerer Supreme.
As I have said, the show has been rather inconsistent in stating what exactly Sylvieâs identity is. One moment, we are told Sylvie is a Loki and that she and Loki are the same person. Mobius says it, Kang says it multiple times, Judge Renslayer says it, the director and the writers state it in interviews. But then in the next breath, they contradict it by saying that sheâs not a Loki, sheâs Sylvie and a different person. Â
You canât have it both ways. Which is it? Either sheâs a Loki, or sheâs not. The narrative is very confusing and it changes depending on how they want us to see Sylvie, especially in relation to her romance with Loki. Itâs so much easier to avoid the selfcest/incest accusations when you can say they are different people. But then they say theyâre the same person. Make up your minds!
Since the show first established that Sylvie is a Loki, Iâm going with that. Especially since we saw a bit of her backstory. She grew up in Asgard as a member of the royal family, which means she had Odin as a father, Frigga as mother, and Thor as brother. She may or may not have the same DNA as Loki. We never got confirmation either way, and there are people who argue that they donât to which I have to ask: How do you know? The show never tells us! âOh, well, thereâs Alligator Loki, are you going to say he has the same DNA as well?â Well, we are never told how exactly Alligator Loki came to be. Is he actually an alligator, or is he Loki who somehow got permanently stuck when he shapeshifted? People tend to forget that he can do that. Ragnarok established that he can turn into a snake, and a deleted scene actually had the childhood story go that Loki turned into a rug to cover a hole in the ground and then dumped Thor into it. There is the scene where Doctor Strange drops Loki through a portal, and Thor is left poking at a business card, and it is clear that for a moment he thinks that Loki turned into that. We know Loki can shapeshift, so Alligator Loki can very well have the same DNA. We just donât know, because the show never explains it for the same reason the show cut out the scenes with Throg fighting Loki...to devote more screentime to Sylki.
Even if they donât have the same DNA, itâs still established that they are the same person, they have the same family, theyâre both the God/dess of Mischief, and even Sylvie herself acknowledges that she is a Loki despite the fact that she changed her name. So selfcest very much applies here, and a good argument can be made that selfcest is the ultimate in incest...after all, there isnât anyone else youâre more related to than yourself. It is very understandable, therefore, that a lot of people would be very, very uncomfortable with such a relationship. Having the same DNA would merely be the icing on the very gross cake.
Furthermore, just because selfcest does not exist in reality does not mean someone canât find the concept distasteful. âItâs not real!â âItâs just fiction!â Yes, and people are allowed to have their own feelings and opinions on fiction. If they find the idea of selfcest hard to stomach, thatâs their prerogative and you really have no right to tell them they are wrong for feeling that way. They should not have to justify to anyone why they feel that way either. No one owes you an explanation for why they find real world incest or cannibalism distasteful, so they donât owe you an explanation for this.
âWell, of course Loki would fall for himself...heâs a narcissist!â Is he though? Is he really? Having dealt with my fair share of narcissists in my life, I have to wonder if the fans who say that, along with the writers, know what a narcissist really is.
Is Loki a narcissist?
Bringing up Cersei Lannister again, the novels she appears in establishes that she is an extreme narcissist. She sleeps with her twin brother because itâs the closest she can come to sleeping with herself, and she desires to do that because she is a narcissist. A narcissist is someone whose personality is defined by an inflated sense of self-importance, troubled relationships, lack of empathy for others, and an excessive deep-seated need for attention and admiration. Itâs a very simplistic definition, and there are plenty of YouTube videos devoted to delving into narcissists into more depth, as well as videos on how to cope with the aftermath of abuse at the hands of narcissists. Narcissists are so devoted to themselves that they ignore the needs and the feelings of those in their lives, which often results in abusive behavior. There are entire support groups that exist for victims of narcissists.
At first glance, one can see why some might consider Loki a narcissist. He does engage in some pretty selfish behavior, he goes to great lengths to get attention, his relationships to his family are indeed fraught with drama, and he seems to have a pretty overinflated ego. He even goes so far as to write a play featuring himself as the central character, and build a giant golden statue of himself after taking over Asgard in the guise of Odin. But really, is his ego truly that big? Or he is overcompensating for his self-hatred and self-disgust?
Loki suffered quite the emotional blow when he found out his true heritage, a revelation that shook him to his very core. Of course, his relationship with his father suffered as a result...the man lied to him for his entire life. Their relationship really was not that great even before that since Odin found it easier to relate to Thor, who was more like him in personality, than to Loki, who was more cerebral and quieter. Lokiâs relationship to Frigga fared much better. Heâs quick to forgive her involvement in covering up the truth about his parentage, and it is obvious that they are close. Even his relationship with Thor prior to the events of the movie is not all that bad, the two brothers are affectionate and playful, and when Loki interrupts Thorâs coronation, itâs not just for the sake of creating trouble, but to postpone Thor taking the crown for another little while because he is not fit to rule. At the time Thor had yet to go through his character development arc on Earth and he was still an overly arrogant, bloodthirsty, elitist douchebag, so Loki really had a good point.
A true narcissist would have done what Loki did just for the sake of making life difficult for Thor. Also, he would have done it because he wanted the throne. Loki states repeatedly that he never wanted to rule. A true narcissist would have been all smiles about taking the throne instead of being reluctant about it as Loki was when Frigga handed him Gungnir.
Throughout the films, and in the first episode of the series, we see that Loki does indeed love his family and is capable of feeling guilt over the things that he does to them, intentionally or not. Narcissists typically donât feel remorse. As far as they are concerned, they are perfect and can do no wrong, so they have nothing to feel bad about. If they hurt you, itâs because you deserved it. You shouldnât have provoked their ire.
Loki feels bad for getting Frigga killed, and then later on Odin. Then he is in tears when Odin dies, and later at the mere thought of never seeing Thor again when the two brothers talk in an elevator on Sakaar. Those are not the actions of someone who is incapable of loving anyone but himself, as Iâve seen so many people claim about him. And the fact that he sacrificed himself to save his brother also kind of kills the whole ânarcissistâ narrative.
In Episode 1, Loki breaks down and confesses to Mobius that he doesnât like hurting people. He does it because itâs part of the façade, and admits that he sees himself as weak. A few episodes later, he admits to a memory illusion Sif that he craves attention âbecause Iâm a narcissistâ and admits to being afraid of being alone. That is far more self-reflection than a typical narcissist is capable of in my experience. As I said, narcissists tend to think they are perfect. A true narcissist would never admit to having any flaws, and sure as hell would never admit that they are a narcissist. As far as the true narcissist is concerned, if you find them flawed in any way, thatâs on you. The narcissist has no need for self-reflection because they honestly see nothing wrong with themselves, and believe that they donât need to change...itâs everyone else who does.
A good real-life example from my past is a former friend Iâll call D. D was a self-proclaimed brat who was quite proud of the fact that she could be difficult to be in a relationship with and tended to go through men like tissue paper. She was demanding, self-centered, extremely jealous, manipulative, and prone to wild mood swings. She could and did go from zero to insane at the drop of a hat. In the time I knew her, she left a string of burnt guys behind, and according to her it was because they just werenât man enough to handle her. She also left behind a string of broken former friends, to the point where there really needed to be a support group for former friends of D who suddenly had her turn them into Public Enemy Number 1 when they either started taking attention away from D, or...well, that was it really. As I said, she was a very jealous person and had a chronic need to be the center of attention, especially if there were men around. Anyway, instead of working on herself to become less self-involved, self-absorbed, and more empathetic, she double downed on her abrasiveness and constant need for attention until she finally wore the poor man down and he either ghosted her or outright dumped her. She never broke up with them, preferring to keep them around for as long as they were willing in order to toy with them as a cat does with a mouse. Â I tried to talk to her about her horrible behavior, but instead of taking my constructive criticism and maybe using it to make some needed changes, she completely turned on me and did her best to make my life hell until I finally cut her out of it. I learned two things: Narcissists donât want help because they donât feel they need it and they are never going to change as a result, and never, ever try to confront a narcissist. Itâll only end badly. Â
A more famous example? Former US President Donald Trump. I wonât get into that, because really all you need to do is perform a quick Google search to see what all heâs done and witness his narcissism on full display. But really, place him side by side with Loki. Do you see any similarities at all? Maybe on the surface, but when you go deeper...no. Loki is not a narcissist. Heâs capable of deep self-reflection, owns his faults, is capable of loving others, and feels remorse. I would argue that anyone who says he is a narcissist, either does not know the character, or hasnât ever actually dealt with a narcissist in real life, to which I can only say: Lucky you. Â
I honestly would argue that calling Loki a narcissist is actually doing a disservice to victims of abuse from actual narcissists.
What about Sylvie? Well, in contrast to Loki who does show remorse while Mobius is playing that âThis Is Your Lifeâ reel for him, Sylvie shows no remorse or regret. She knows that the TVA agents she kills are as much victims as she is. They are innocent variants who were kidnapped from Earth and forced to work for the TVA after having their memories wiped. She knows this, yet the first time we see her she burns a bunch of TVA agents alive, and she just stands there watching as they scream in agony. In the next episode she says right out that sheâs âhaving some funâ while possessing the body of C-90 and murdering more agents. She is not at all sorry about doing what she did, and weâre supposed to be understanding since she was kidnapped as a child. Okay, but the entire TVA didnât do that. The agents she kills didnât personally kidnap her. The only one we see who was directly involved in that is Renslayer. Sylvie âdid what she had to doâ, fine. But she doesnât feel bad about it, at all. The flashback to her as a child takes great pains to try to show us what a good person she is when she cries out âHelp him!â as another prisoner is being beaten, but I guess she grew out of it.
We donât know if Sylvie has any other narcissistic traits besides lack of remorse because, well, the show really doesnât do much to show her personality. Other than killing people, trying to kill Loki, and then flirting with Loki, we just donât really see much to her. Itâs another trait of a Mary Sue. Mary Sues often have bland, one-dimensional personalities. After all, their only purpose is usually to serve as love interests for one or more male characters. Mary Sues break the âshow, donât tellâ rule by having the other characters verbally inform us about their traits, usually while singing their praises, but we donât actually see those traits in the Mary Sue herself.
Loki calls Sylvie âamazingâ, but how amazing is she, really? She kills people she knows are victims, she endangers the timeline just to sneak into the TVA, and then she kills Kang despite knowing that there is a very good chance that doing so could unleash something far, far worse than him. Then again, it doesnât have to make sense when youâre pushing an unwanted and unasked for romance on an audience who was expecting a scifi show, not a romance.
I have spoken in a few places about this. Romance is fine, but in a show that blatantly places itself in the scifi genre, it really should only be the background, not center stage. When I expressed this opinion, I got accused of being dismissive of an essential part of the human experience. Well, first of all, congratulations: You just invalidated the existence of people on the asexual and aromantic spectrums, not to mention people who are celibate by choice. Second, that is why we have the romance genre. To tell stories centered around romance. I like romance, I read romance novels, and I sometimes write romantic fiction. But there are some places where it just is not appropriate.
There are people who say that adding romance makes things more interesting. Nope, in those cases itâs just a smokescreen, something used to hide plot holes and distract us from just how empty the story really is. Writers like to say that if you need a romance to make things more interesting, then you really donât have much of a story in the first place. And sadly, Loki does have some plot holes. The nexus event on Lamentis is a good example, and the romance is definitely used to distract us from that. People were so focused on âoh wow, theyâre having a moment, theyâre soulmates!â that they didnât think âwaitaminute...didnât they say that nexus events canât occur in apocalypses?â
We really did not need a romance in Loki. Period. It was unnecessary, it was distracting, a lot of people found it disturbing, and it actively hurt a marginalized group.
Loki Is A Queer Icon!...maybe
I am not going to say that the relationship between Loki and Sylvie is not a bisexual one. A bisexual relationship is a bisexual relationship regardless of whether or not the person the bisexual person is with is the opposite sex. Saying otherwise is biphobic. Biphobic people in both the straight and the queer communities have been excluding bisexual people who happen to be in opposite sex relationships for years because apparently one stops being bisexual once they get into a relationship with someone of the opposite sex. This is horseshit. Iâve been in relationships with CIS men, did I stop being attracted to other men, women, nonbinary, genderfluid, agender, and other genderqueer people? No. No, I didnât, because while I was entangled, I was not dead. Heterosexual people donât stop being attracted to other members of the opposite sex when they are in relationships, itâs no different with queer people.
So, stop saying that Loki and Sylvie are not a bisexual relationship. Youâre not doing us any favors at all, and in fact youâre only helping the biphobes who want to kick us out of Pride and other queer spaces for daring to date members of the opposite sex.
I will address the âBit of bothâ line however. In Episode 3, Loki has that response to Sylvieâs questioning about whether there had been any would-be princesses or princes in his life. Again, a conversation that comes out of nowhere. She stated outright that she didnât trust him, clearly wanted him dead, and now sheâs asking if heâs single. Whatever.
Anyway, people went nuts when Loki answered âA bit of bothâ. It was confirmation that Loki was bisexual, it was celebrated on social media...and it is really biphobic and Kate Herron, who is bisexual herself, really should have known better.
Biphobic people have long tried to sow division between the bi and trans communities (unsurprisingly, biphobia and transphobia tend to go hand-in-hand) by saying that the concept of being bisexual is transphobic. âBiâ means two, ergo bisexual people are only attracted to two genders, specifically CIS men and CIS women. It never occurs to anyone that the âtwo gendersâ a bisexual person could be attracted to could be, say, women (and yes, I include trans women in that, since they are in fact women, get over it) and non-binary people, or agender and gender-fluid people, itâs always CIS men and CIS women. This despite the fact that the definition of bisexual has been âattraction to more than one genderâ since long before the Bisexual Manifesto was put out in 1990.
Some people have tried to remedy this by adopting the moniker of âpansexualâ instead, which A) is basically reinforcing what biphobes are saying about bisexuals and creating even more division and B) doesnât just mean âattraction to trans people as well, Iâm not transphobic, I promise!â âPansexualâ is not interchangeable with âbisexualâ. Pansexual is attraction to all genders. Bisexual means attraction to more than one gender, but not necessarily to all genders. You can have a bisexual person, for instance, who is attracted to all genders except for men. If you are attracted to more than one gender, but not to all genders, you are bisexual, and labeling yourself pansexual is lying and basically caving in to the biphobes.
Iâm not trying to police what people call themselves...if you want to use the two terms interchangeably, if you want to call yourself bisexual, or pansexual, itâs fine. But just evaluate the reasons why. Are you calling yourself pansexual because you really think you can be, or are you just calling yourself that out of fear of being labeled transphobic? The latter, in my opinion, is not a really good reason, and it only helps deliver the biphobic message that bisexual people are transphobic.
So, by saying âa bit of bothâ, Loki is really helping to reinforce that biphobic assertion that bisexual people are attracted just to CIS men and CIS women. Itâs disappointing, but it is Disney so I suppose that is the best we can expect for now. It just shows that Disney really has a long way to go.
Whatâs more problematic is the supposed genderfluid representation. Now, I am a CIS woman. As such, I feel unqualified to really say that the representation is shitty and fluidphobic. However, if Iâm not qualified to say that it is, then Kate Herron and the writers are unqualified to say that it isnât. Rule of thumb: If members of a marginalized group are telling you that you did a poor job of representing them and that you are being transphobic or fluidphobic, instead of ignoring and dismissing their concerns like a good portion of the population already does, itâs a really good idea to listen to what they are saying and learn how you can do better.
There have been some genderfluid and trans people who expressed that they liked the show, and good for them. But I have seen a lot of very valid criticisms and concerns from genderfluid and trans people about the representation on the show, and I think they really should be listened to. Kate, you and I are queer, but we are still CIS women. Ergo, we have no say in whether or not the way you attempted to present Lokiâs gender fluidity is transphobic. If genderfluid people say itâs fluidphobic or trans people say itâs transphobic, then it is indeed fluidphobic/transphobic. To say otherwise is gaslighting a marginalized community who already faces gaslighting on a daily basis.
I will touch on a couple of things.
First, in Episode 5, Loki asks a bunch of his variants if they have ever encountered a female version of themselves, a question that is met with varying levels of incredulousness and even disgust. If Loki was truly genderfluid, this question wouldnât have been asked. Genderfluid means the person shifts genders along the spectrum. Loki does this in the comics. Comicbook Loki switches between masculine and feminine presenting on the drop of a dime, especially in his current incarnation. Loki in the MCU we are told is also genderfluid, and should also be able to hop along the gender spectrum on a whim. There should not be a âfemale variantâ therefore, since they are all the same gender. There could be a female presenting variant, but that is not the same thing. They would still be all genderfluid in that case. Also, Sylvieâs nexus event would not have been âbeing born the Goddess of Mischiefâ. Okay, the show never actually says that is the nexus event that led to her being arrested, but it heavily implies it. If Sylvie is a Loki, and as a Loki is genderfluid, her being the âGoddessâ of Mischief should never have been an issue since they can change genders anyway.
Second, making Lady Loki a separate person is problematic. A lot of genderfluid people felt that this move invalidated their identity by basically showing that the same person cannot indeed be different genders along the spectrum. I donât feel Iâm totally qualified to really get into this. I will just say that if youâre going to write a genderfluid character, maybe at least get an actual genderfluid person to advise in the writing room.
Third, there is a transphobic movement called trans exclusionary radical feminism. You might have heard of it. Unfortunately, it is a very widespread movement that has done a lot of harm to the trans community, successfully blocking funding to organizations that help trans people, blocking laws that would benefit trans people, and the movement includes celebrities like Graham Linehan and JK Rowling.
One of the weapons they like to use against trans women is the concept of âautogynephiliaâ. It is basically the sexual fetish of becoming aroused from thinking of oneself as a woman. Â Many, many of these transphobic âfeministsâ love to say that trans women are merely men who have this particular sexual fetish.
Itâs bullshit of course. Maybe there is a small segment of the male population that has that fetish, but trans women are not included in that. For trans women, things like dressing as women, changing their names, having state and federal issued IDs that say they are female, and being able to use the restrooms and change rooms that match the gender they actually are as opposed to the one they were assigned at birth is not a matter of sexual arousal. Itâs a matter of making their external realities match their internal ones. Itâs a matter of validation of their identities as women. Sexual gratification has nothing to do with it.
Now, Loki is not trans, but genderfluid people do tend to fall under the trans umbrella. We have Loki, a supposedly genderfluid individual and masculine presenting, falling head over heels in love with a feminine presenting version of himself. Maybe itâs just me, but it just seems like a form of autogynephilia to me.
Way to go, Kate...you just gave the TERFs more ammo.
One more note: At one point, Kate tweeted a list of the different Loki emojis, and âjokinglyâ included #FiretruckLoki with an emoji of a firetruck. Kate, you do realize that a âjokeâ transphobes love to harp on is that they can identify as an attack helicopter, right?
Itâs his way of learning self-love!
That is not how you learn self-love.
First, the people who are making this argument often contradict themselves by then saying that Sylvie is a different person. Again, make up your minds. Either Sylvie is the same person as Loki, or sheâs not. You canât have it both ways, and you canât continue to change the narrative to fit whatever it is you want to shove down the audienceâs throats.
Second, romantic love and self-love are two different things entirely. Loki isnât feeling self-love with Sylvie, heâs feeling romantic love. Thatâs not learning self-love. That's narcissism, and itâs character regression in his case. Heâs supposed to be evolving past being a self-centered, egotistical shitweasel, and falling in love with a variant of himself makes him, as Mobius put it, âa seismic narcissistâ. Itâs not character development. Â
Third, this argument tends to come in the same breath as saying that Loki is a narcissist so of course he would fall for a variant of himself. If Loki is a narcissist though, why would he need to learn self-love? Narcissists already love themselves, that is the very definition of the word. If Loki needs to learn self-love, that would imply that he actually hates himself, which is the opposite of narcissism. Again, the writers and the fans who make these arguments when they feel the need to defend this relationship need to make up their minds. Either heâs a narcissist and therefore already loves himself too much, or he hates himself and needs to learn to love himself. Itâs once again changing the narrative to fill a plothole. Â
Fourth, the whole learning self-love and trust narrative is completely thrown out the window in Episode 6 when Sylvie decides to toy with Lokiâs emotions, using his feelings for her against him by kissing him as a distraction so she could grab Kangâs temp pad and toss Loki back to the TVA. To Sylvie, her revenge was more important than the bond she had with him. The move basically set Lokiâs progress back several steps. What little progress he made anyway.
TL:DR, is there hope for Season 2?
Whew, this went on for a while, didnât it? Told you I had a lot to say.
As I have said, if you liked the first season of Loki and think I am completely full of shit, thatâs fine and itâs your prerogative. More power to you. Â
But, and this is a huge but, that does not give you the right to harass and bully people who did not like it.
I have witnessed horrible things from both sides of the now split Loki fandom on social media. Harassment and even death threats towards the creators. Telling people who donât like the Loki and Sylvie relationship that they need to drink bleach. Homophobic attacks. Gatekeeping. Â
Thereâs constructive criticism and sharing your opinions, and then there is...this.
Both sides need to chill.
Anyway.
Even though Kate Herron has left the show, Michael Waldron is still the showrunner and as such I am not altogether optimistic for Season 2. I would like to see more emphasis on Loki himself for that season. Yes, itâs a novel thought, wanting a show that is called Loki to actually be about Loki, but here we are.
I would like to see actual character development in Loki rather than the old âtrue love transforms bad boy and conquers allâ trope. There is a reason Disney has started to abandon that trope in their animated movies. Theyâve been getting dragged about it for decades.
If Sylvie must return, there needs to be some actual consistency surrounding her character. The show needs to decide if she is a Loki or not and stick with whichever one they decide. And seriously, no more romance. Frankly, after what she pulled in Episode 6, I will be severely disappointed if the writers have Loki crawling back to her. That would make him pathetic, and Loki deserves better.
Really, Loki does not need a romance, period. Heâs too emotionally immature, he has a lot of character growth to go through, and a romance would do nothing but be a distraction and an impediment to that growth. Anyone who got married too young can confirm that it is important to learn more about yourself and figure yourself out before you even think of getting involved with another person, who should not be your whole world. The Loki and Sylvie romance was reminding me of Classic Disney in another not-good way in that the two of them, especially on Lokiâs side, were starting to revolve around one another and that does not make for a healthy relationship. Again, turning Loki into a Disney Prince (or, seeing as how heâs supposed to be genderfluid, Princess). Stop it.
Again, the romance was a smokescreen. It was a distraction from just how thin the plot was. Please, for the love of G-d, give more focus to the actual plot.
Do some research and talk to some psychologists for healthy ways Loki can âlearn self-love" and develop as a character. If Ragnarok Loki can do it without relying on a romance with a variant with himself, then surely TVA Loki can pull it off.
Speaking of talking to people, listen to the concerns of the trans and genderfluid fans. Listen, talk to them, maybe get a couple in the writerâs room. CIS people should not write genderfluid people, and this season is a good example of why.
Please remember that Loki is not an idiot. Yes, he has pulled some fast ones and hasnât been the greatest planner, but he is not downright stupid like he was in season 1.
And...really thatâs all I have. As I have said, this thesis really wasnât about making suggestions to the creators because I seriously doubt they will ever even see this. This was more less me screaming into the void, venting because I was that upset about what I saw as character assassination happening to one of my favorite characters. Keeping all of this in was proving to be bad for my blood pressure. Â
I am attached to the character, have been for years. Loki is just one character in the MCU who I love, who I want to see done right. I had been looking forward to his solo series for a very long time, and the disappointment I felt was something that I just couldnât keep in. I kept my mouth shut when they killed off Tony Stark for no reason other than that Ronnie Downey, Jr. didn't want to renew his contract. I didnât say anything at the Russo Brothersâ âhappy endingâ for Steve Rogers, even though I feel it made no sense and is a massive plot hole. Â
What they did to Loki, however...I couldnât keep silent.
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Alright, this here is for everyone: Itâs for those who like Tony and those who donât. Itâs for Stony shippers, for Stucky shippers, for IronStrange shippers, for those who ship Ironhusbands or WinterFalcon â itâs for those who hate Stony or Stucky or any of the other ships for whatever reason. Itâs for every single person in this godforsaken fandom.
The past few days Iâve seen quite some fandom drama on this hellsite to a point where it went way too far. To a point people got literal death threats into their inbox. And that on both sides of the discourse that originally led to the drama.
While that shit fucking finally stopped again, instead now people start pointing fingers: âX sub-fandom is so toxic, I hate them so much, itâs good weâre not like that.â Etc. But you know what? Thatâs not true.
Since Iâve been on this hellsite Iâve seen the biggest bullshit everywhere. - Stony shippers harassing others in some kind of superior-complex, going on anon and annoying the fuck out of everyone, even other Stonies for ânot writing the ship goodâ or whatever other bullshit.
- Stucky shippers bullying anyone who likes Tony, especially when it comes to Stony or WinterIron fans, but even other Stuckies who genuinely like Tony, for example an artist who dared to make a WinterIron piece for once and got so much hatred for this that they practically stopped (and no, Iâm not going to name anyone here).
- IronStrange shippers going into a poor Stony artists inbox telling them theyâre ship is wrong and they should convert to IronStrange now, as if that actually would change their mind, instead of just being annoyed by this kind of childish behavior.
- Ironhusband shippers literally telling a Stony fan that they should just die because their ship was toxic. Yes, Ironhusbands â that small, pure ship. I know what Iâm talking about.
- WinterFalcon shippers stalking Stony blogs to send hate.
- Tony haters lurking into a Tony-centric blog, waiting for an opportunity to start a discourse.
- Pro Tony people going into the anti tag to start a discourse.
- Both, pro and anti Tonys, pro and anti Steves, crosstagging their posts deliberately to annoy the other side. Â
You think I am joking or making things up? Ha, I wish I was. Point is: If you think your sub-fandom never spreads hatred? Believe me, it does.
And yes, fact is, the ones who cause the biggest problems are Stonies and Stuckies. Thatâs not me being hateful, thatâs just simple math. The bigger a fandom, the more toxic people youâll find there. And guess which two sub-fandoms are the biggest ones in the MCU fandom? Exactly. Doesnât mean that if youâre in a small fandom, that you wonât find these people â there are just less. But not none.
So, instead of pointing fingers at the others all the damn time, maybe you should take a second and look at your own place. The moment one says âitâs always the Stuckies thank god weâre not like thatâ I can bet with you that in the next thirty minutes a poor Stucky blog will get a hateful anon ask in their inbox.
Which is not to say that this is the anti posterâs fault. Itâs not their responsibility to watch out their followers donât harass other people. Youâre allowed to like or dislike whatever you want and talk about it on your own blog, and if someone misunderstands it as âhaha theyâre totally right, letâs attack those peopleâ, then this isnât on you. But you should be aware that there are people in your fandom who will think like that. Because itâs never only the others.
So, instead of pointing fingers all the time, maybe take a second to spread awareness that this kind of asshole-ish behavior is not welcome, not in your own fandom, not towards the other ones, not towards the ones you donât like, not towards anyone at all.
The moment you go into someoneâs inbox to spread hate, the moment you start to crosstag/misstag your posts to start hateful discourse, the moment you search for something deliberately that isnât meant for you to find a reason to attack someone, the moment youâre disrespectful towards a content creator for their interests (this includes gif makers too btw!), the moment you jump into someoneâs inbox trying to change their opinion because you believe youâre right, the moment you tell someone to kill themself-
-thatâs the moment youâre one of those toxic people weâre talking about.
Like what you want, hate what you want, make your posts about it, tag it fucking properly, keep away from the things you dislike, but keep in mind:
The characters are fictional.
The people behind those blogs are real.
Nothing, abso-fucking-lutely nothing, gives you the right to harass or bully or send fucking death threats to other people.
And if there was even one single second you thought I might be talking about you: Fuck yes, then this sure as shit is about you.
Stop blaming as if it were only the others, stop acting as if your fandom is on a pedestal, no matter how small it is, stop turning a blind eye on what is exactly in front of you, stop encouraging others to harass, and stop fucking harassing real life people over fictional characters for fucks sake!
And if you still think this kind of behavior is justified? Then do it openly instead of turning to anon like a coward, if you really think youâre justified â so people can fucking block you.
Thank you for your attention.
#stony#stucky#ironstrange#ironhusbands#winterfalcon#tony stark#steve rogers#mcu#fandom#anti stucky#anti stony#WHATEVER the tags aren't working anymore anyway#what a waste of time chdksldndmslf#can't believe i wrote all this just so it won't appear suddenly anymore#well... at least i fucking said something so there's that#anti steve rogers#anti winteriron#winteriron#idk why i'm even tryin anymore it won't work obviously chdksld#fandom discourse#tw: death threats
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antis: Says something divisive about a character. pros: *refutes* antis:
Notice how pro characters DON'T use tags that antis can see? Yeah, do that. We're not gonna agree with each other, might as well stay out of each others' way, no?
Pro and anti tags, ESPECIALLY in this fanbase, is so necessary considering how impossible it is to conduct rational discourse around MCU characters. It's the safest way to have a difference of opinions without the personal attacks (of which antis typically resort to). Remember when antis "infiltrated" a John Walker fangroup like they were in an episode of Kids Next Door? Right...not exactly mature behavior. You won't see us going "Bucky should choke on his vibranium arm". So please, spare me this "lol John Walker fans are soooo pressed" bullshit, antis periodically harass and cancel their own actors. Then they'll wanna complain about toxicity in the MCU as if they don't actively participate in it. You can dislike a character for whatever reason, just don't pass your feelings off as fact (even though that's literally John Walker antis in a nutshell but đ¤) Also, I refuse to argue with people whose reasons for hating characters involves their race, gender or sexual orientation. Using "straight white male" as a derogatory statement is NOT an argument. TL;DR: Antis gonna anti, just keep it to yourselves.
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Palm Trees // th x fem!reader
Summary: You were starring alongside Scarlett Johansson in the new Black Widow movie, sheâs a younger spy that Nat saves from the Red Room, trains her to be better. You meet Tom prior to the premiere of The Red Room and he agrees to be your date.Â
Part of my Drive North series. Based on the song Palm Trees by the SWMRs, listen to it while reading. As you will hear in the song, it discusses the corruption of Hollywood and younger more naive people being taken advantage of in the industry.Â
Warnings: brief sexual harassment (not Tom), angst
Word Count: 6.1K
Sarah! Sarah! Look over here! Sarah! Smile!â You hear people shout and you wave and grin as your security walks you inside Jimmy Kimmelâs studio. Your stage name, Sarah Winters was being called left and right.
You know that they were really waiting for Scarlett who would be arriving soon, but they knew a little about your role in the movie, theyâve seen the behind the scenes photos and theyâve seen the trailer, so theyâve got some idea of who you are.
You made your way inside, getting put in your own dressing room which was literally a dream, something youâve been thinking about and hoping would happen since you were a little girl.
When Scarlett arrived she hugged you tight. When Jimmy asked you questions about the movie, you talked excitedly and animatedly, almost spoiling a huge plot point when Scarlett put her hand over your mouth.
âLooks like Hollandâs gonna get a run for his money on the spoilers,â she laughs and youâre blushing, you totally knew what you could and couldnât say but this was the first big, TV interview youâd ever done. You were just incredibly excited.
Later that night you posted some photos on your Instagram, the first one being a shot of Scarlettâs hand over your mouth with your eyes wide.
You laughed as you captioned it, âletâs play how to keep Y/N from spoiling the entire Black Widow movieâ.
You posted it and as you got ready for bed, exhausted from the long day of press. Before falling asleep you saw some comments, most of them were funny, a lot were tagging Tom saying that you were coming for his title. Â
You saw a notification that Tom had commented on your post as well, probably because everyone kept tagging him.
tomholland2013: as spoiler king, you can be spoiler queen, no stealing my title
You rolled your eyes, blushing a little. You ignored the onslaught of people commenting, lots of those sideways glancing eye emojis, a few keyboard smashes. Youâve never even met the guy. A few moments later you noticed he had followed you. You wondered if he would be at the Black Widow premiere, then maybe you could meet him. Since before you were cast as the young woman who Natasha takes under her wing, youâve always been a fan of Marvel movies, the smallest crush on the actor who played Spiderman. He was attractive, seemed nice enough, your age; what more could you ask for?
You sent a quick text to Scarlett, asking if other MCU actors would be at the premiere.
Scarlett: why? Hoping a certain someone might show up?
You: psshhh no I donât know what you mean
Scarlett: Tom might be there, let me ask
You: no omg heâll wanna know why youâre asking
Scarlett: no he wonât give me a second
You groan, putting your phone on the edge of the bedside table and trying to sleep.
You wake up the next morning by your alarm. Youâve got a flight to London to do one last round of press before the premiere in a week.
You shower quickly and toss on a comfortable sweatshirt and gym shorts before shoving your PJs into your suitcase, making sure you had everything from your hotel room. You make it to the car that was waiting for you on time, miraculously, before checking your phone.
You noticed a text from an unknown number and frowned, opening it as you got in the backseat.
âAirport?â The driver asks.
âYes please, thank you!â
Unknown number: Hey so I heard you need a date to the Black Widow premiere.
You: sorry who is this?
You check your texts to Scarlett.
Scarlett: a certain someone may or may not have asked if youâre going with anyone to the premiere, told him you werenât, think you might be interested in having him on your arm for the night
You: wait, like, Tom Holland , thatâs who weâre talking about? No way you didnât convince him out of pity
Youâre heart is sort of racing as you wait for a response from Scarlett.
She sends back a screenshot of her conversation with Tom, her asking if heâs going to the premiere. Then him asking if you have a date. And Scarlett telling him you didnât, but he better act fast and then she sent your phone number.
You quickly add the unknown number in your phone.
You: I mean, you donât even know me like at all, what would make you want to be my date?
Youâre shocked by how quickly he answers.
Tom: well I could get to know you.
You: you know everyone and their mother is freaking out about that insta comment of yours?
Tom: their mothers too? Quite nosy arenât they?
Tom: So, when can I meet you? See if youâre truly the spoiler queen
You: Â I ALMOST say one thing and suddenly Iâm the spoiler queen? At least I didnât actually spoil any big plot points from the movie
Tom: fine fine you havenât earned that title yet
Tom: you and Scarlett will be in London tomorrow right?
You: you stalking me?
Tom: no, just asked Scarlett
âMiss? Weâre at the airport.â
You look up and sure enough your driver has pulled up to the airport. Someone opens the door, greeting themselves as your security, taking your suitcase from the trunk and offering to hold your backpack.
âIâm fine thank you,â you say as he walks you into the airport. Thankfully there arenât any paparazzi or fans of Scarlett here, who was taking a later flight.
You check in and your suitcase is sent off before you go through security, Todd, the security person following you. He let you know heâd be with you until your flight and then when you landed in London there would be another person waiting for you.
This was all new to you, having security with you at airports, when you went to press events, the rare occasion of being recognized when youâre out and about.
You checked your phone again while waiting to board. It was a short wait, another thing youâve never experienced, one was plane flights in general, the other was getting to be in first class. You felt so fancy you lost your mind the first time you flew with the cast to a filming location in Europe.
You waited for your seat location to be called, seeing another text from Tom.
Tom: Iâll be in London for the next few days, call me when you land
You gulp, quickly responding before boarding.
You: will do
The entire plane ride you attempt to sleep, try not to think of Tom fucking Holland asking you to call him. It doesnât work. You sit there, watch movie after movie, trying to keep your mind off the boy. You gave up and put on Spiderman: Homecoming. Youâve seen it before so you let yourself get a little lost in the story, falling asleep about halfway through. Youâre woken up by the rumble of the plane touching down.
***
You make it to your hotel with limited problems, you at first couldnât find the security person waiting for you then realized he was holding a sign with your stage last name and not your real last name.
âHi Miss Winters, Iâll be working with you while youâre in London, names Rick, shall we head to the hotel?â
âThatâd be great, thank you,â you say, noting heâs already got your suitcase.
You see another text from Tom and blush as you sit in the car.
Tom: donât wanna sound like a weirdo tho so ur totally not obligated to go out with me if you donât want to
You: who said anything about going out?
Tom: I just meant, like to get to know each other before you whisk me away on the red carpet
You: Iâll see if I can sneak away from the hotel tonight, donât have press until tomorrow
Tom: I could come to you
You: huh
Tom: we could hang in your hotel room, order room service, besides if we are out and about together the instagram comments would be the least of our problems
You: problems?
You frown, problems? You didnât want to stir up trouble, you didnât want to get death threats from teenagers over Tom either, considering you donât even know the type of person he is, considering youâre just going to hang out.
Tom: well Iâm just not really in the mood to be swarmed on the street by paps and fans and stuff
Tom: unless you wanna go out then we can, itâs whatever
You: no, no id much rather that not happen, hasnât really happened to me yet and Iâd prefer it to stay that way
Tom: after this youâll be so famous you wonât know what to do with yourself
You laugh to yourself, Randy glancing at you.
You: highly doubt Iâll be loved nearly as much as you are
Tom: nonsense
You: Iâll be at The Savoy hotel, you know it?
Tom: I can use google
You: idk I heard you were pretty bad with technology
Tom: youâre right, google and texting are the only two things I feel 100% sure I can do
âMiss Winters? Weâre at the hotel. Your schedule for the next few days should be in your email. You have the rest of the day off though.â
You nod, time zones were messing with your head, âwhat time is it right now?â
â10am.â
âThank you,â you say as you both get out of the car. You check into your room and thank Rick for your suitcase.
You toss your backpack and suitcase down before flopping onto the bed, checking your phone.
Tom: are you at the hotel now?
You: yea
Tom: ok
You checked out the room service food, realizing since you slept on your flight you were starving. You decide to order pizza even though itâs early, you called and they said they could get some delivered from a local shop. You check your phone and see that Tom texted you again.
Tom: on my way, whatâs your room #
You: 413
Oh, he was already on his way, shit. You practically jump out of bed and open your suitcase. You know it shouldnât matter what you wear. But you change out of your oversized sweatshirt into a plain white T-shirt, keeping your gym shorts on. You thank god that your job and press required you to shave. Because although you didnât think anything would happen, you wanted to feel confident if it did.
You changed quickly and brushed your teeth, jumping back into bed. You grabbed your book, East of Eden, your favorite book, itâs had plenty of wear and tear since youâve read it so many times but you couldnât get rid of it or get yourself a new copy.
You picked up where you left off, the story of young Adam Trask and his brother Charles, arguably your favorite and the best part of the book, seeing the dynamic between the two of them, then seeing how Adam grows for the rest of the book.
The door rang as you finished the chapter. You set the book upside down and grabbed your wallet, you checked through the peephole to confirm it was your pizza, as if on cue your stomach was rumbling. You thanked the person and tipped them, the pizza charged to your room.
You settled back into your bed, about to open the pizza when your doorbell rang again. You got up and looked through the peephole.
Tom was standing outside your room, hands in the pockets of sweatpants he was wearing, paired with what looked like an oversized hoodie. Okay, maybe you werenât underdressed previously. You opened the door, leaning against the frame.
âHi spoiler king,â you grin.
âNice to finally meet you spoiler queen.â
âFinally?â
âYeah, been wanting to meet you since you started filming Black Widow.â
âDidnât know you knew I existed until a few days ago.â
âWell, surprise,â he laughs, shrugging, âyou gonna let me in or should we continue this conversation here?â
âOh my god sorry Iâm such an idiot, come on in,â you say, walking backwards into the room. You feel the heel of your foot hit the back of your suitcase and you canât stop yourself from falling. Tom rushes forward and catches you, arm around your waist and pulling you back up.
âHow in the world are you playing this super spy when you trip over a suitcase?â
You chuckle, blushing as he helps you steady yourself, nudging your suitcase to the side as he closes the door.
âI play a super spy in training thank you very much,â you say as his hand leaves your waist and you quietly miss the feeling of his hand there.
âWell, guess youâre excused then.â
âDo you, want some pizza?â You ask, sitting on the edge of your bed and opening the box.
âLittle early for pizza,â he observes.
âHavenât eaten, in, oh god I donât even remember, since the night before I got on the plane to come here from LA?â You say, stomach rumbling.
âThen I think you should dig right into that pizza,â Tom says, sitting on the edge of the bed next to you.
âGood plan,â you say, ignoring how awkward you feel and taking a bite of a slice. He grabs your book and reads the title.
âEast of Eden, never read it before.â
âI mean I would act all offended because itâs my favorite book but I know that like not a lot of people who have read it. You should though, if you find the time.â
âYeah this looks long and Iâm way too dyslexic to read that without giving up halfway through.â
âOh shit sorry I had no idea.â
âAll good, kinda a running joke with my fans and people.â
âThat youâre dyslexic?â
âYeah,â he shrugs, thumb running through the pages.
You finish your pizza, watching his face as he reads the description on the back of the book.
âStole it from 10th grade English class when I first read it,â you say before picking up another slice.
âSolid,â he laughs, looking at the list of last names written on the front cover along with the year, âDonât see your name here Sarah.â
âThatâs cause I didnât have a stage name till I auditioned for Black Widow, nameâs Y/N, Y/L/N,â you say, pointing to the last name put in the book.
âOh, well nice to meet you Y/N, do you prefer that over Sarah?â
âHonestly, yeah.â
âWell, Y/N it is.â
Youâre silent, you eating your pizza, Tom flipping through your book, laugh at some of the notes you have written in it.
âCool if I have a piece?â he asks, setting your book down.
âAll yours,â you say, gesturing to the pizza box sitting between you.
âSo Y/N, how did you enjoy working on the movie? It was your first movie right? Know you beat out some names for the role.â
âYeah, guess so, donât know why.â
âBecause you were best for the role, obviously.â
âDonât know why theyâd choose a nobody over people like Chloe Grace Moretz,â you shrugged.
âBecause you, they saw potential in you, they also love to cast new faces, make newer actors famous,â he says.
Your mind starts to race with reasons why they mightâve cast you and you start to doubt your ability as an actress, because youâve done theatre, been the lead in shows in your town and region but never movies or TV shows.
âHey you know, I think youâre quite talented from the clips weâve seen in trailers.â
âUh, thanks,â you say, hand rubbing your neck, why are you so fucking awkward?
âSo what kinda dress will you be wearing?â
âHuh?â
âTo the premiere, so we can match.â
âOh yeah, yeah lemme send you a picture of it,â you say. You were wearing a pretty dark red dress with black lace adorning the bodice.
âSweet Iâll see what I can do about getting a matching tie and stuff.â
âCool, you know itâs nice of you to uh, be my date,â you say, fiddling with your hands.
âYeah, you know, wanted to see if youâd give me a run of my money.â
âWith what?â
âSpoiling stuff.â
âYeah,â you laugh, âdonât need to worry about that after the movie comes ou- FUCK.â
That definitely wasnât something he shouldâve heard.
You watch as he pieces what you just said together, âoh my god, hey even if that happens, well I think youâve outdone me.â
âListen at least I didnât say that in front of a live audience or something.â
âWhat am I? A dead audience?â
âNo, youâre just one person.â
âAh thatâs right, I donât count.â
âNope,â you say, tucking your legs underneath you.
You and Tom hang out and talk about filming, about the movie industry, about your favorite things, it felt like he learned everything about you in the time that you talked.
You stopped yourself a few times, apologizing for rambling.
âItâs fine, like to listen to you talk.â
At some point, you two had set the pizza box on the ground and were lying with your feet swinging off the edge of the bed.
âSo, what about you? You excited for whatâs to come for Spiderman?â
âYeah, totally, I mean I want to branch out and do more movies, doing the voice stuff for Onward, the Pixar film; was really cool.â
âHave you done any auditions recently?â
âSome yeah, should hear about them soon.â
âThatâs awesome. I honestly donât know what Iâm gonna do after this,â you groan, still unsure why youâre telling Tom any of this.
âWell did you enjoy your time on set? Did you enjoy acting in a film? Enjoy the people you worked with?â
âFor the most part yeah,â you say, looking away.
âFor the most part? Alright who do you hate? Which actor?â
âNo, the actors are all great, I love them. Just, nah itâs stupid,â you sigh, because honestly you had no idea if what happened was weird, if it was out of the ordinary or if thatâs just how it was.
âNothingâs stupid, hey, I might be able to give you a tip to help deal with it.â
âJust, one of the ADs, Jack , he uh, heâd always hug me, like if I did a good job on a scene, heâd just like hug me really tight and uh, like sniff my hair, like press his face right into my hair and like not even ask me if he could hug me which I donât know, I never stopped him from hugging me I just never hugged back but thatâs stupid itâs a stupid thing to have a problem with.â
Itâs quiet for a moment and you start to overthink and doubt yourself, doubt why you told him this story. Did Jack make you feel uncomfortable? Yes, absolutely but thatâs just how it was, how you figured the industry worked.
âDid he do this in front of everyone?â
âNah, just on my way back to my trailer or my hotel room or whatever.â
âDoes Scarlett know?â
You sit up quickly, looking at him, âno, no she doesnât. Nobody does itâs stupid I donât know why I told you.â
âItâs not stupid Y/N, you know, if you want to talk to someone, you should. I can be that person if you want. But if you want you should tell someone higher up, they might be able to do something about it.â
âI donât, itâs not worth it,â you sigh, laying back down.
âOkay.â
âOkay.â
âIâm sorry.â
âWhat are you sorry for?â
âTalking about this.â
âDonât be.â
âYeah?â
âCourse, itâs just, I've seen a lot of people, young new people who donât really have any idea of how this industry works, see them getting taken advantage of, whether itâs by asshole directors who donât know how to teach young people, treat them like, I donât know, like theyâve got some power over you.â
âOh, well thanks I guess.â
Thereâs a very awkward tension now and you have literally no idea how to move past it.
âSo now that you know all about me, whatâs there to know about you?â
âWell, got three brothers, Harry and Sam are twins, and Paddy is a little younger than me. Got a dog, Tessa, sheâs amazing, truly my favorite being on the planet.â
âGod I wish I could have a dog, momâs allergic.â
âYou should meet Tessa sometime, sheâs a sweetheart. Mumâs a photographer, dad does a bunch of stuff, comedy, writer, blogs, stuff like that.â
âIâd love that.â
You feel his hand brush against yours, meeting between your bodies.
âOh, sorry,â he says as he feels your hand stiffen under his.
âNo, it's just, why?â
âWhy what?â He says as your hand holds his hand tightly.
âWhyâd you do this?â
âHow many times have I told ya Y/N.â
âJust, dunno why youâd care.â
âCanât help it, I guess, youâre funny, at least from the interviews of you Iâve seen, and youâve made me laugh bunch today.â
âYeah counterbalance all the deep shit I told you.â
He laughs, thumb rubbing the skin of your hand, âsee? Anyways, I should get going, supposed to have dinner with my brothers but Iâll see you later? Maybe we can hang out while youâre still in London, if youâre not busy being super famous and with press.â
âYeah, we can always text too if I am. And Iâll see you at the premiere? You can always just not show up, never talk to me again if you donât want to,â you say, watching as he gets up.
You follow him to the door and he turns to face you.
âHmm, good offer but I donât think I will.â
âYeah?â
âYeah I think itâll be much more fun to be your date than ditch you, plus I already know whatâs gonna happen in the movie so we can sit and be not surprised together.â
âSorry I spoiled it for ya,â you say, blushing.
âYouâre fine, it was nice to meet you Y/N, Iâll see you later,â he says, you donât even realize your hand is still in his until he lets go, leaving you alone in your hotel room.
âWhat is wrong with me?â You groan, jumping back into your bed.
****
You and Tom text throughout the week, a lot actually. Sometimes heâll ask you random questions about your family, about your favorite place to eat back in your hometown.
Youâre in a dressing room, just about to go for an interview when he texts you.
Tom: I love learning all this stuff about you, just wish I could hear you talk about it in person
You: whyâs that?
Tom: because, when youâre really passionate about something you talk like really animatedly and itâs really fun to watch
You blush, having no idea how to respond you leave your phone there before making your way to the interview.
****
Youâre on your way to the premiere, the flight from London just as long and exhausting as the last. You didnât have much time when you got to LA to relax, you could put your suitcase in your hotel room and go straight to the premiere where you would spend the rest of your time getting ready. People were doing your hair, makeup, helping you into your dress, it was going to be a whole ordeal. For now, you had an hour to yourself in your dressing room, to relax, to breath, whatever you wanted. Tom let you know heâd be there in two or so hours, he didnât have as much prep as you had. Basically just had to put on clothes and his hair would take less than half the time yours would.
You were nervous, your first premiere, first red carpet or whatever, your mom wouldnât be able to make it, she was working, always working, but she sent you her love.
You were laying on the couch in your dressing room, scrolling through your twitter feed when you heard a knock on the door. Maybe it was Tom, you got your hopes up a little. Frowning at your leggings and baggy sweatshirt, you didnât want him to see you until you were all dressed up.
You reluctantly got off the couch, opening the door.
âOh hi,â you say, as you see Jack standing in front of you.
âHi,â He smiles, âCan I come in?â
âWhat?â
âJust wanted to talk to you, congratulate you,â he says and you reluctantly step back from the door, letting him in. He closes the door behind him and you sit down on the couch, setting your phone on the dressing room table. What you didnât see or hear was the click of the lock as he locked your door.
âYouâre going to be a star Sarah, I can make you great,â he says, sitting next to you. His leg was right against yours and you shift away, body pressed up against the side of the sofa until his leg wasnât touching yours. You didnât mind that he called you by your stage name, you preferred it actually. That way everything he said wasnât really directed to you, at least you could pretend it wasnât.
âYou? Why would you be the one to make you great?â You frown, thatâs your job, audition, get your name out there.
âI know people, theyâll cast you, like I convinced them to.â
âHuh?â âSaw something special,â he says, and you freeze when his hand rests on your shoulder, âcouldâve cast anyone, any big name, but we chose you.â His hand moves to glide up your neck and cup your cheek and your mind is screaming at you, MOVE, SLAP HIM, RUN but youâve slipped into panic mode, which for you meant you were frozen.
âWanna make you Hollywoodâs next leading lady,â He says, face so close to yours you can smell his very gross breath, your heart is beating out of your chest.
Youâre trying to think of something, anything.
You remember something Tom had told you back in the hotel a week ago.
****
âJust, if heâs weird again, donât just go along with it, push him away, tell him heâs a fucking coward, he doesnât get to use his position of power over you.â
âI donât know if that would work.â
âJust try it, okay? Just, donât let him hold anything over your head.â
****
His lips are pressing against yours and thatâs when you use all your strength, breaking from your panic to push him off you, hard enough that he ends up on the other end of the sofa as you jump up.
âGet up! Get out, now.â
****
Tom wanted to surprise you, so he arrived earlier than he said he would, your wrapped present in one hand, he found out where your dressing room would be and made his way to it, frowning when it was locked.
He was about to knock when he heard you, screaming.
âGet the fuck out!â
âSarah, donât do this, youâre going to regret this.â
âNo, I wonât, Iâll only regret letting you be a fucking creep for this long.â
You and the AD are in a screaming match.
He tries to doorknob again, wanting to break it up before other people heard.
âCome here,â Tom hears the AD say before you yelp, and thereâs a clattering and âIâll blacklist you, no director will work with you. Fucking ungrateful.â
âIf you donât get out now, I will scream at the top of my lungs and tell everyone what just happened.â
âBitch.â
****
Jack approached you, âcome here.â You backed up into the table as he grabbed your arm tightly, causing you to yelp before he presses his lips hard against yours. Your other hand picks up your phone and your knees connects with his crotch as he letâs go of you and stumbles back before slamming you against the mirror, making you cry out as a sharp pain radiates from your head.
âIâll blacklist you, no director will work with you. Fucking ungrateful.â
âIf you donât get out now, I will scream at the top of my lungs and tell everyone what just happened.â
âBitch,â he mutters before unlocking the door, swinging it open.
You whimper, sliding down to the ground and gently touching the back of your head, tears welling up in your eyes as he slams the door shut behind him.
Thatâs not how you expected this to go down. Your eyes widen when you see a little blood on your fingers.
You vaguely hear a knock on the door but you ignore it, arms wrapped around your knees. What a great way to start your first premiere. Youâre laughing as tears stream down your face, something that your mom always said was a bad habit of yours.
***
Tom hears the door unlock and he steps to the side, slipping into the hallway next to your dressing room.
âFucking bitch, who does she think she is?â Jack mutters as he walks past Tom, not even noticing him.
Tom knocks on the door, hearing you crying hurt him, he hated hearing anyone cry. He heard you laughing, it was a laugh verging on hysterical and decided to go in and check on you, just in case.
***
âY/N.â
You look up through watery eyes and see Tom standing in your doorway, a red gift bag in his hand, eyes wide.
âFuck,â you say, head dropping back down as you cry.
He quickly closes the door behind him and kneels down next to you.
âY/N, I, I heard, Iâm so fucking sorry, I shouldnât have eavesdropped but heâs gone now, are you okay? Shit question of course youâre not okay.â
âIâm fine,â you mumble, trying your hardest to smile up at him.
âYou donât have to smile, Y/N.â
âWhat?â
âDonât haveta smile for me, you can cry if you want.â
You sniffle, the tears slowly stopping.
âIâm fine,â you repeat, wincing as the pounding in your head brings you back to reality.
âWhatâs wrong?â He asks, eyes full of concern.
âJust, hit my head a little, itâs nothing,â you say, your hand instinctively reaching for the back of your head to check if it was still bleeding.
âWhat the fuck did he do to you?â He asks, seeing the blood on your fingers.
âJust shoved me, itâs nothing.â
âItâs not nothing, youâre bleeding, lemme get someone.â
âNo, please Tom,â you say, voice barely above a whisper, pleading with him.
âWhy donât, why are you going to let this slide?â
âBecause I canât, heâs gonna, heâs gonna blacklist me, wonât get even a small cameo in a movie, heâs gonna ruin me.â
âHey, no, he wonât, because you wonât let him. You stood up for yourself back there, I heard you. You wonât let him take away everything you��ve worked so hard for, and what youâll continue to work hard for. Hey, letâs get some ice or something, clean up, see if you need to go to the hospital okay? Donât want you passing out on me on your first premiere.â
âPromise you wonât tell anyone?â
âNot my story to tell, if you want to, when itâs time you can. Thereâll be no pressure from me though,â he says as he helps you stand up. Your legs wobble a little bit and youâre afraid youâre going to fall but his arm is a comforting presence on your waist, steadying you. Thereâs no malintent in his touch as he soothes you, sitting you down on the couch.
You feel safe as he lets go, crouching down to open the small fridge, grabbing some ice from the freezer section.
âHere, turn around,â he says, nonchalantly ripping off a lower section of his shirt to wrap the ice in.
âWh-,â you start, turning as his fingers sort through your hair.
âJust looks like a scrape, here,â he says, gently pressing his shirt with ice onto the area, hand rubbing your shoulder as you wince.
âThank you,â you mumble, glancing at the bag he abandoned on the floor, âWhatâs that? Clothes all fit in there?â
He chuckles, âno, Issa present, for you, for your first premiere.â
âWhat? My, why's that, you already gave me a present youâre here with me.â
âYeah but you deserve an actual present, here, hold the ice in place,â he says, palm over the top of your hand, moving it up to rest against the makeshift ice pack.
He reaches down and grabs the bag, pulling what looks like a wrapped book out of it.
âWas gonna give it to you little later but nowâs perfect. Go ahead, open it,â he says, putting it on your lap and replacing your hand with his own on the ice pack.
You gently open the wrapping paper and gasp.
âThis is, Tom you didnât-,â
âDo you like it?â
âOf course I do, I mean, this is, wow this is the best gift anyone could have ever gotten me.â
âWell you only have a first premiere once,â he says, searching your eyes.
âI donât, I donât know how to thank you.â
âDonât haveta thank me darling, why donât we get ready for tonight?â
âWill, do you think weâll see Jack?â
âHeâd be an idiot not to show up, but hey, maybe you wonât run into him.â
âI like the sound of that,â you say, wiping your eyes.
âWhat did the stylists say they were going to do with your hair?â
âThink it was just gonna be curled, nothing fancy.â
âOkay well when they get here weâll tell them no curling that part of your head.â
âWell then Iâll just look stupid.â
âNah, youâve got plenty of hair to go around up here,â he laughs, fingers running through the hair resting on your shoulder.
***
âSarah! Tom! Smile for us! Look at you two!â
Photographers are shouting at them from up and down the red carpet, as Tom and Sarah walk, his arm gently resting on her waist, hers around his shoulder.
âYou look lovely,â he whispers into your ear as you continue to walk.
âNot as handsome as you.â
Heâs been saying nice things, whispering them to you all night, found it was the best way to make you smile, especially after what happened with Jack. You never did see him on the red carpet that night and didnât bother asking anyone where he might be either.
***
âWow,â you say, collapsing on the bed of your hotel room next to Tom.
âFun right?â He asks.
âI mean, I wasnât expecting such reactions from the crowd.â
âYeah? Movie premiere crowds are always the rowdiest. But hey, they cheered, they laughed, they cried, you made one hell of a movie.â
âGuess so, Iâm proud of it,â you sigh, gently opening the first edition copy of East of Eden, âhow did you even find this?â
âIâve got connections,â he smiles, watching as your eyes scan the first page, so different from your tattered copy from 10th grade.
âMy 10th grade English teacher would lose her mind if I told her I had this. Scared to read from it, just wanna put it in a glass case and stare at it.â
âWell, itâs all yours so you can do anything you want with it.â
âCanât believe this is all happening.â
âWhat is?â
âEverything, been my dream since I was a kid, to be famous, and well, yeah,â you sigh, not quite finding the words youâre looking for.
âYou know, it might be, like, donât feel obligated to say yes but would you maybe wanna, I donât know, go on a date? Not now obviously, I think I could fall asleep right here but Iâd like to take you out on a proper date.â
âYeah? I mean the entire world already thinks weâre dating so sure, I donât think a public date would hurt or help our cause.â
âGreat,â you yawn, turning on your side.
âI should go, so you can sleep,â he says, standing up.
âStay,â you mumble against your pillow.
He doesnât respond and your heart almost drops, assuming heâs going to leave. Instead, he crawls into the bed, his arm hesitantly resting on your waist, until you scoot so your back is flush against his chest.
âGoodnight,â you whisper, exhaling, for the first time in over a year and a half you truly felt safe and comfortable falling asleep.
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