#sometimes it's hard to forget what info we have access to that characters don't

[oceanicpoetry]

so.. you have definitely shown me the extent of my bias lol. your last two posts have really shifted my perspective from thor being (wilfully) ignorant (though as a result of abuse) to thor being.. very sad and confused as to what the hell is going on and expressing some of it through anger?

and it's true i personally believe that loki in avengers saying things like “i remember you throwing me into an abyss” was a direct side effect of how the scepter was warping him; i didn’t understand why thor didn’t see loki totally going nuts on earth as out of character. but yeah, obviously loki had completely lost it the last time thor saw him and for thor that came totally out of left field, it would’ve been impossible for him not to miss a lot of things (like thor not yet knowing that loki wasn't odin's son by blood when loki said “and i will be true heir to the throne” (not the true heir)- I doubt thor would’ve put that in context later because yes, in all fairness it is obvious that to him it must have looked like loki was trying to kill him. loki’s apparent murderous intent followed by “I could’ve done it, Father! For you! For all of us” and subsequent fall must’ve been such whiplash. i'm sorry thor, i did the double standards thing ;-;). i should add that i am also not of the opinion that loki ever wanted or actively tried to kill thor (never doubt I love you); he could’ve blasted him with the destroyer. in their fight later i think he's stalling thor. he could’ve used gungnir for a single killshot like he did with laufey, but he doesn’t even use the tame blast function most of the time, just twice; even when thor is destroying the bifrost loki tries to jump him instead of taking him out from a distance. i don't even know if i think he really wanted to kill the warriors 4, even though they committed treason (immediately after he saved their lives) to interfere with the result of the previous time they committed treason (heimdall did the same thing and loki didn't kill him either, though heimdall tried to kill him). granted, i don’t understand the whole thing with the destroyer At All since loki only tells it to stop thor from returning.. but they’re all stuck on earth anyway, they wouldn't have been able to. so loki has exactly zero excuse for this fight here, unless you count temporary insanity (which i guess it might be? since otherwise the only reason the destroyer goes there is to give the plot a reason to restore thor’s powers- it just makes no sense to me)

people talk a lot about loki feeling unloved by thor, but honestly... i think, in the avengers and onwards, loki is more confident that thor loves him than the other way around.

because the thing about loki is that his feelings for his family are about so much more than just love. maybe thor doesn't love him, maybe loki is fundamentally unloveable, but even if that's not true, loki is equally afraid of the opposite: maybe this is what love IS and he threw it away. maybe he can never hope to be anything more than a shadow and a servant, maybe love for him is inseparable from humiliation and powerlessness and loss of identity, maybe this is all he's good for and all he'll ever have and he should be grateful for it. (he can't be grateful. he'd rather gnaw off one of his own limbs. but part of him still wants that love, no matter the cost.)

but thor... thor doesn't understand any of that. and he doesn't understand / is in denial of a great of odin's abuse (including of him), which also means being in denial about a great deal of what he's done wrong when mirroring/obeying odin.

so loki feels trapped and humiliated, but thor feels betrayed and despised and he doesn't know why. he doesn't know why loki is running from him. he can barely recognise loki's reaction to him as fear at all, let alone work out what he's afraid of.

thor sees that loki is in pain, but he can only guess what that pain consists of. he knows that loki wanting to be loved is part of it, but he offers loki love over and over and loki rejects it. he doesn't have the tools to work out what's wrong with his love, so he can only conclude that there is something wrong with loki, or that there is something wrong with him. either loki is completely, inscrutably, illogically "mad" (in a way that, given how asgard seems to understand mental illness [ie not at all], still carries some level of moral condemnation, some sense of brokenness, even as it hurts thor to think of loki that way)... or. loki just does not love thor back.

perhaps even both.

and i think that's why thor never tries to visit loki in the dungeons. even if we assume that he could have (which i'm not convinced by), what reason does he have to go? he misses loki, but he doesn't think that loki misses him. he knows that loki still needs help, but it seems clear that loki will never accept his help.

from thor's perspective, going to the dungeons would only result in loki getting angry and trying to hurt him again. thor has no reason to put himself through rejection and betrayal yet again when loki is already home, "safe" in the dungeons, and, as far as thor is concerned, every attempt at reconciliation has already been made and failed.

and honestly, from thor's point of view it must seem just as likely that encouraging loki to keep getting angry at him would only make loki's "madness" worse. better to leave him alone, and hope that one day the anger might cool. better to let loki ask for thor when he's actually ready. it's his turn to apologise.

(i don't think anyone ever told thor that loki was asking for him. subtly, and without apology, but still - in little ways all the time. what of thor? does odin share your concern; does thor? loki was never answered, and thor never knew. always reaching for each other while the other isn't looking. or while their parents cover the other's eyes.)

(and of course, all this comes from thor not understanding the horror of loki's sentence itself - but ultimately that's the same problem as not understanding odin's abuse in general. thor has accepted his own cage, so why can't loki learn to live with his?)

[manonamora-if-reviews]

My Brother; The Parasite by qrowscant

============= Links

Play the game (IFComp) See other reviews of the game Follow @qrowscant-art

============= Synopsis

People die, and sometimes they come back. Your brother is one of those. Even as his body rots and his mind unravels, he still has control over you— just like when you were kids. A story about a corpse, a complicated sibling relationship, and the things we forget.

============= Other Info

My Brother; The Parasite is a Twine(Harlowe) piece, submitted to the 2023 Edition of the IFComp.

Status: Completed Genre: Horror

CW: flashing, eyestrain, body horror, descriptions of physical abuse, implied assault, implied drug/alcohol abuse / animated elements

============= Playthrough

Played: 9-Oct-2023 Playtime: around 20min Rating: - [IFComp vote] Thoughts: The length taken to get closure...

============= Review

My Brother; The Parasite is a raw horror highly stylised kinetic piece, which you are a woman looking for closure after her brother's passing. Given a second change to talk to him thanks to a parasitic procedure, this speculative piece of fiction explore family trauma and processing grief.

Spoilers ahead. It is recommended to play the game first. The review is based on my understanding/reading of the story.

This game is intense. It is incredibly emotionally charged, not just from the gruesomeness of the brother's death or the description of its corpse coming back to life, but through the hints of unprocessed past trauma (between both siblings, and their mother). The story told through minimal descriptions and bare dialogue punches your gut at every turn. What is supposed to be a tool to process grief and find closure becomes another knife plunged and twisted into the wound. It hurts, but you can't take it out or you'd die. It hurts, but if you look away and don't confront it, you'd never find peace.

You have a feel that something is not quite right from the beginning, but it is hard to say whether it is due to the character feeling grief or something bleaker is afoot. The visuals are graining, with most of their colours washed out; some are slightly animated, with tears falling down their face, or the slight breathing movement of the corpse, or the uninterruptable thoughts glitching in the background, or the slight changes in portraits between passages... every element on the page has a purpose - which is to keep your eye on the screen until it's all over.

Something that struck me with this entry was how the tension built from the start. It kept building and building as you go through the game, leaving you little reprieve or a moment to catch your breath. If the game could send scent, it would try to overwhelm all your senses. And the tension starts small, with a little bit of uh, something feels werid... but becomes uncomfortable, with confronting the corpse of your loved one, confronting harsh truths... and quite bleak, with the realisations of your past, of your present, of your future... and honestly quite creepy if you think too long about about it... and then oh no, oh god, everything is going wrong, are we going to die?!?!?

Though I understand the stylistic choices made in this game, and was warned with the eyestrain in the blurb, I found the font size and low-contrast colours text (especially the greys) quite hard to read. It required a little bit of changing the size on my browser and zooming in to be able to read comfortably. would be lovely if it was a tad more accessible. There were also some instances were the timed text and images made me wonder whether I forgot to click on something or whether my internet wasn't working right. I didn't mind it when the game would use a "loading" passage to change the background, but was quite confusing with the drawer bit (I also couldn't see the 4th object in that passage, clicked at random on the page...). Maybe a bit of a shorter length for the timed text....