#I think I never hated a fandom so much in my entire life (hating hatedoms don't count)

[bigtittiecomitte]

[Small Rant!]

(Hope this is alright!! Sorry for my ask being so long and all over the place, but I just had so much to say!)

I honestly might leave the fandom, I'm REALLY tempted to at this point. Because, I don't know how much more of this toxicity, the behavior of Envy and V stans (NOT ALL, BTW) and the Nuzi hatedom, I can take..especially knowing that Envy and V stans are doing the same thing they did back when episode 6 released, attacking and harassing Liam Vickers + sending death threats...it's absolutely disgusting and unacceptable and shouldn't be normalized, AT ALL. These individuals who are doing this aren't real fans of the show and don't care about it, they don't give a shit about the love, dedication and care that goes into Murder Drones or all the hard work that goes into the show. They only care about wether their ship becomes canon or not and if they don't get what they want, they start harassing and shitting on the crew behind the show, especially the creator (Liam) and say they don't wanna watch the show anymore and it just proves they were probably NEVER fans in the first place and only cared about shipping and that's just so damn sad, it's especially pathetic and childish how some of these fans act..

I've said it before and I'll say it once more, SHIPPING ISN'T EVERYTHING, STOP MAKING IT A BIG DEAL. There's so much more to love and appreciate about the Murder Drones and there's so much to love about the show and shipping shouldn't be something you should even go into and look forward to when getting into any piece of media, MD isn't even a romance show. I'm overall just so damn tired and sick of this fandom, like REALLY TIRED..it's just so damn draining and exhausting especially when the same arguments are used again and again. The fandom just sucks and I fear it'll only get worse and I really don't know if I can stay for much longer. (I'm seriously missing the pilot-era days when the fandom was small and not that bad) but even though the community isn't the best, I'm glad we have some respectful and caring individuals in the fanbase like you and others, I honestly don't think the fandom isn't as bad here as it is on both TikTok and Twitter, the MD fandom side of things on Tumblr is more tame compared to the other social medias I mentioned.

Overall, MD is such a comfort show for me and has had such a huge impact on me, it's seriously one of my favorite shows, I'm not even joking. I'm incredibly thankful and happy for it's existence and also thankful to Liam, GLITCH, the animators, the VA's and just the entire team as a whole for making such a great and wonderful show! It means so much to me and I'll never stop loving it despite it's ups and downs + the community not being the best at times, I'm truly thankful for this show and those I've met in the fandom. ❤️💞

Hey you Dorky goober

No need to apologise for the long rant. Generally I adore long rants so win win for both of us (if anyone does need to rant about something then I’ll totally be here for you, I know what it feels like to not rant about something but you really do)

With you thinking about leaving the fandom due to the toxicity honestly I would not blame you at all. I’m someone who’s comfort ship is Nuzi so just seeing any hate would make me think about it for the rest of the day

Usually what I do when I see any toxicity is just laugh at it, laugh at how stupid their take is. Recently I had a fight with this Lesslie person and all I did was laugh at how silly it was like bro was getting aggressive bc people preferred Nuzi

I’m trying not to dogpile on toxic V fans + Envy shippers cause I don’t want to seem too obsessive over drama but for some reason it always gets worse

There are toxic Nuzi shippers but there aren’t as many as toxic Envy shippers like never in my life have I seen an Envy shipper getting doxxed because they like Envy. For some reason it’s always the toxic Envy shippers that make this fandom miserable

I don’t think they even know that they’re toxic shippers and desperately need to leave the fandom, most of them are kids but that never excuses any actions that they do because it’s the internet, once you post something it’s there forever

Murder Drones has so much in store than just romance and I’m saying this as someone who mostly posts Nuzi related things although I really do want to post more about the lore and I even planned for a full post on the details (I was pretty busy so I didn’t complete that but it’s in the drafts lol)

Not only the lore but just Murder Drones in general, the romance is great but so is the show, just everything about this show is filled with so much love and you can tell just by all the silly things they put in the backgrounds and the writing by Liam

Like the N x Uzi scenes are just small scenes like they’re put in different places but it works because the show isn’t focused on romance. I do think people forget that the N x Uzi scenes are quite literally important for the plot as well, it’s not just there for fanservice. Liam knows what he’s doing and anyone that tells him otherwise can go fuck off honestly

There are bad people but there are also a lot of good people in this fandom, a lot that do appreciate Murder Drones for even continuing. Screw whatever those 13 year olds on Twitter say, they don’t know crap about respect

#murder drones #n x uzi #nuzi

[firelxdykatara]

not gonna lie I would love to hear more about the drama and infighting that went on in The Vampire Diaries fandom if you have the time (and also want to use that time to give your experience with the fandom, which from the snippets you've told sounds Not Fun so I get it if you don't want to lol)

oh god, there was like, SO MUCH, i just

i really feel like tvd is one of those fandoms that is so hard to describe without a lot of ‘you’d have to have been there’, but it really felt like this huge and all-consuming beast for about five years until the show finally imploded and the fandom basically turned on it en masse. (you ever see that post going around that’s like ‘if you ever want to know what true regret feels like, ask someone who once called tvd their favorite show’? still a mood, all these years later. basically the entire fandom thought the show should have just bowed out with whatever shreds of dignity it had left at the end of season 6, and became more of a hatedom than a fandom for the last two seasons. when you have an entire fandom cheering news of your show’s cancellation, i think that’s a sign you done fucked up, julie.)

first and most infamous, of course, are the ship wars. which are pretty much inevitable in any teen-centered drama, and i really think the CW fucking thrives on them, but it was particularly egregious in TVD’s case because not only was the base premise of the show a love triangle, but the two main romantic leads were brothers that the show constantly pit against one another--in pursuit of elena’s affections, but also because it kept up this insistence on the ‘good brother/bad brother’ dichotomy which stopped making sense after about season 2 (by which time we have found out that the good brother was never as good as he appeared, and the bad brother has been growing and isn’t nearly as bad as he pretends to be)--and the question of which brother ‘deserved’ elena (and no, what elena wanted very rarely factored into these discussions, especially in the team stefan camp because they turned on her when what she wanted was no longer The Good Brother, but i’ll get to that in a bit) was hotly contested.

i’m not kidding when i say the shipping wars were vicious. i started watching tvd shortly after it began to air, which was late 2009, and kept up with it fairly sporadically over the years. i didn’t come onto tumblr until 2011/2012, and by then, the fandom was already pretty much a garbagefire. there were anti ship and anti character blogs, any time something bad happened for one ship the rival ship would invade the tags to gloat about it (seasons 3 and 4 were especially rough, and i’m not gonna pretend delena fans weren’t just as bad about tag invasion and shit, but as that was my side of the road i saw a lot more of the stelena shippers being assholes, which soured my opinion on the ship a long time before i started rewatching and realized the red flags were there from the start), confessions blogs were popular also toxic as fuck (so much fighting happened in the notes of those posts, good gods), and this was right around when twitter’s popularity was on the rise and the line between Celebrity and Fan was thinning, so the fandom was absolutely atrocious to much of the tvd cast and crew.

(some of them deserved a lot of the later backlash, but in the early years a lot of it was ‘how dare you write the story in a way i dont like, you terrible fucking person’, and gods don’t get me started on the dobsley vs nian Thing)

i think what really encapsulates my feelings on the tvd fandom as a whole, though, is the way they (to this DAY) treated elena gilbert, which can be summed up in one meme that gained a lot of traction around season 3 if i remember right: that gif of pam from true blood, with the text altered to read “i’m so OVER elena and her precious doppelganger vagina!”

i swear at one time i had over half the active tvd fan accounts on tumblr blocked, because i got to a point where i would no longer tolerate elena hate, and she was (and still is, in what remains of the fandom; you’ll see a lot of ‘elena was one of the worst things about the show’ takes from ex-fans, too) one of the most widely despised characters in the entire fandom. because she -checks smudged writing on hand- was a traumatized teenage girl who -reads off a crumpled notecard- couldn’t always perfectly sort out her own feelings and -squints at the ceiling- sometimes made mistakes or bad decisions. (except a lot of the fandom also insisted that she was a mary sue who had no character traits or flaws or faults and it was like....make up your fucking minds???? is she a calculating conniving bitch whose somehow manipulating these centuries old vampires to tie them around her little finger or is she a boring flat character with no depth and no flaws??? jfc)

there was this massive double standard, too--like, stefan and damon could fuck whoever they wanted and that was fine, but elena was constantly raked over the coals for the crime of developing romantic feelings for the two men who had become constants in her life and whom she cared for deeply, and oh my GOD the slut shaming that happened when elena slept with damon was fucking wild. (and also happened in canon lmfao. like the show had one of elena’s best friends basically call her diseased on screen for falling in love with someone other than stefan. it was gross and ridiculous and the friend in question was also being a giant hypocrite at the time since she was happily flirting with someone who was directly responsible for the deaths of like four of elena’s loved ones and her own boyfriend’s mother but that’s beside the point) but like elena was called a slut and a bitch and a whore for ‘cheating’ on stefan (she hadn’t, and she had in fact broken up with him on screen the episode earlier) and ‘immediately’ jumping into bed with damon, even though none of them said fucking boo when stefan had one night stands or damon had fuckbuddies or whatever.

shit, caroline didn’t get any of this treatment when she started falling for tyler while dating matt! which isn’t to say i think she should have, just that i think it’s fucking ridiculous that elena was absolutely demonized by the fandom for daring to have feelings for two guys at once and eventually acting on them--despite the fact that the entire premise of the show was a love triangle. it’s not a love triangle if both sides don’t eventually get explored, and the crew had been pretty explicit about the fact that delena was going to happen at some point--but when it did, a huge chunk of the fandom absolutely threw a fit.

and a lot of these elena haters were alleged stelena stans, and i say alleged because they hated her so much for not wanting stefan’s dick anymore that it was clear they were really stefan stans and only wanted stelena to be endgame because they wanted stefan to ‘win’ at the end of the day, because ‘he’s the good brother’ so he deserved elena more.

it was all very gross and very misogynistic and very sex shaming (apparently delena was a ‘shallow’ and ‘superficial’ relationship because they had sex after two years of unrequited feelings slowly becoming requited and then pining for ages on both sides, and because they had a lot of on screen chemistry that the show capitalized on for years so of course they did a lot of making out and shit but it’s not like stelena didn’t have its fair share of making out and sex scenes, stefan was just too much of a coward to let elena top i’d apologize for that joke but i’m really not sorry because it’s true), and when i say it was egged on by the crew, that’s because they refused to let the love triangle die back in season 4 when it should have.

they insisted on stringing stelena fans along, dropping little bread crumbs to keep them invested, like dreams of a future where they were married and revealing that stefan was also a doppelganger and he and elena were descended from a pair of star-crossed lovers (a plot that ultimately went nowhere, to no one’s great surprise), and then fucking like. julie plec turned around and threw nina under the bus after she chose not to extend her contract and pretended that stelena might have happened again if she hadn’t left the show, which....i mean frankly i wouldn’t put it past her, but it would have been shitty writing. then again, she thought having a vampire pregnancy where a uterus was magically transplanted from a witch into a vampire that could somehow......carry the babies to term.... made sense and was a good way to accomodate candice’s RL pregnancy rather than like literally ANYTHING else, soooooo. but anyway julie saying that around like, end of s6 sparked off a new wave of nina hate and elena hate and ship wars bc they SEers took it as ‘confirmation’ that stelena was REALLY meant to be endgame and it was all just a hot fucking mess

another thing is that, while tvd was in its prime before the anti/purity culture shit started picking up any real steam, there was still this pervasive attitude throughout the fandom that if you liked Damon, you were A Bad Person. liking damon was apparently grounds for insults and harassment, and apparently he was The Worst Person on the Show even though literally nothing he does on screen is any worse than shit we know stefan has done (and frankly every other vampire too, but i mention stefan specifically because he was always held up--in the show but especially in the fandom--as the Good Brother while damon was the Bad One, and if you liked damon more then that had to mean your morals were dodgy and you clearly couldn’t appreciate what a heroic and saintly figure dear stefan was and....oops, i’m sorry, my salt keeps leaking -cough-).

meanwhile klaus quickly became a fandom darling despite not even really having much of a redemption arc (on tvd anyway, he just became more ‘affably evil’ as the show went on and more inclined to work with the main characters rather than try to kill them; i have no idea what went on over on his show, though), and like i can 100% appreciate liking villains and not caring that they do dodgy villainous shit, even just liking them bc they’re hot and wanting them to kiss a main character bc they have insanely good chemistry (yes i ship klaroline, no i won’t apologize for it, they could have been Really Great), it’s just really the double standard that gets me.

and all of this, incidentally, required ignoring some truly gross shit stefan was responsible for wrt his relationship with elena, that frankly it has always bothered me never really got addressed in the show. i get why elena herself would never be able to actually call him on it, but the fact is that he stalked her for months after he first saw her and thought she was katherine (meanwhile it only took damon .5 seconds to realize she was someone else entirely, but that’s another topic entirely), and then he deliberately inserted himself into her life because, in his words, ‘i have to know her’. he never gave a thought to how his presence in her life might affect her (or rather, he did, and tormented himself about it in his internal monologue, but never let this actually dissuade him from disrupting her life), and elena would wind up blaming herself for every tragedy that befell her friends and loved ones as a result of getting mixed up in vampire bullshit even though none of it was her fault--she literally blamed herself for existing but most of the fandom didn’t give a fuck about that lmfao--and stefan did shit like find out that she was adopted and then withhold this information from her until she got pissed about another secret he was keeping (her resemblence to katherine) and drop it on her to try and distract her from her very reasonable anger, and like... i should stop before this becomes a whole rant about how much i hate stefan fucking salvatore, but the point is, he did a lot of really sketchy shit he never answered for and elena never really took him to task for, and the fandom just kept eating up his insistence that he was the Good Brother and therefore he deserved to have elena, and if she didn’t want him anymore it was because she was a heinous bitch who didn’t deserve him.

uh.....i think i got off track there. and there’s probably a lot of shit i missed, like i think i was incandescent with rage for most of seasons 5 and 6 so i missed a lot of the interfandom shit cause i was too busy being increasingly pissed off at the show itself, but if nothing else this should give you an idea of how much of a goddamn cesspit the fandom was while the show as in its prime. there’s a reason both the show and the fandom have such a lousy reputation lmfao.

#the vampire diaries #tvd #tvd fandom salt #anti stefan #anti stelena #salt for ts #asked #Anonymous

[ranma-rewatch]

Episode 2-School is No Place for Horsing Around

Alright, we’re going into episode two this time, “School is No Place for Horsing Around”. No mess this time with alternate titles this time around, even if the one we have sounds a little unwieldy. Once again, this feels like an episode I know ahead of time fairly well, so I’ll join you in a second after I’m done rewatching it. 

This episode starts out a little slow. It’s the next day, and we’re reintrodcued to the Tendo and Saotome families as they go about what is, for them, normal. Namely, Akane is getting back from a jog to see Ranma and his dad sparring in the yard while the rest of the Tendo’s eat breakfast.

Soon they’re on the way to school, though Ranma is walking there on top of a fence, probably because he thinks it makes himself look cooler. They talk, including about how neither wants the school to know they’re engaged, Ranma acts like a jerk, but just as Akane is ready to give him violent retribution, Genma shows up to chastise Ranma far treating his fiance badly. Ranma immediately just knocks his dad into a nearby waterway, turning him into a panda, then expertly dodges his dad’s attempts at retaliation...only to walk right into the path of some old lady throwing out water, activating his curse.

Akane realizes that Ranma probably shouldn’t show up to his first day of school in his cursed form, so takes him to the house of Dr. Tofu, the family physician for the Tendo’s. He seems like a nice guy with a weird sense of humor, but after Ranma turns back and they leave, he realized that the guy must be a martial artist, since he was able to sneak up on Ranma without him noticing

It also becomes clear that Akane really likes Dr. Tofu, which he finds funny because she keeps protesting about how much she hates boys. But that’s right about when they get to the school gates, and Ranma is stunned to see a bunch of guys from the school, most of them athletes, are running up to Akane to attack her while also proclaiming their love for her. She effortlessly beats them all up while an instrumental version of the theme song plays in the background. (Something I’ve never seen done in a second episode, I don’t think.)

But once they’re all down, the sky darkens and someone throws a rose at Akane, which she catches. From out of the shadows appears a man quoting classical literature/poetry (the source depends on the translation), holding a kendo sword, here to fight Akane. He boasts of his skill, but when Ranma draws his attention, the man gets irate that this whelp dares to show familiarity with Akane.

Ranma reveals he’s staying at her house, and immediately that sends this guy, Tatewaki Kuno, the Blue Thunder of Furinkan High, into fighting mode, but aiming his attacks at Ranma instead of Akane. Ranma seems a little flustered at first, before giving a real introduction of his own and letting the fight start. It quickly becomes clear how powerful Kuno is, able to smash a stone wall or cleave a tree in two with his wooden practice sword, but Ranma is once again great at evading attacks. Just as each is about to hit the other, the dark clouds above begin their rain, and Genma shows up to push Kuno aside and whisk Ranma away just as his curse activates again.

Once inside, Akane gives Ranma the low-down. Apparently, at the beginning of the school year, Kuno announced to everyone that if anyone wanted to date Akane, they had to beat her in a fight first. Ever since, she’s had to fight all those boys every day just to get to class. Oh, and when Ranma laughs off Kuno as a loser, Akane points out a large bruise on his neck. Kuno never hit Ranma, that was just from the attack missing, and she says if he had landed that blow, Ranma would have had a gash there instead. It also turns out that Ranma took longer with his fight than Akane usually does, so they’re late to class and have to stand outside holding water in a bucket, which is/was a normal punishment in Japan.

Meanwhile, in the classroom for the older students, it’s revealed what Kuno got from Ranma in their trade-off: in that split-second, Ranma had quickly scratched some characters onto Kuno’s forehead. His initial annoyance is from the fact that Ranma didn’t write his name correctly, but Nabiki, who is Kuno’s classmate, makes it clear that Ranma had actually just written “Incompetent.” Then, in the middle of class, she tells Kuno that Akane and Ranma are engaged, and he flips out.

This leads to him also being sent out into the hall, but he quickly runs over to the protagonists loudly asking what the meaning of their engagement is. Now the whole school knows, and another fight quickly starts between Ranma and Kuno. As Ranma runs away, he decides to jump out the window, with Kuno following. The fact they’re on the third floor doesn’t faze Ranma...but the fact they’re directly above the swimming pool is definitely a problem. That’s where the episode ends! Cliffhanger!

So, what is there to say about this episode? Well, quite a bit, I’d wager. To start with, I really adored that fight between Akane and all the guys. It’s not the smoothest animation in the world, but it really shows off how badass she is compared to these regular high-schoolers, and the instrumental theme in the background sells it really well.

This is also the introduction of Tatewaki Kuno, one of my favorite characters in the entire series. I honestly cannot think of any way his introductory scene can be improved. None at all. He is pompous, cultured, arrogant, and just a bunch of fun. The fact that it cuts to Nabiki and her friends after he calls himself the “Blue Thunder of Furinkan High”, and they start wondering where that came from, only to reveal that recently he’d instead been calling himself “Shooting Star” just adds to his character. This guy sees himself, unquestioningly, as the hero, when he is in fact an annoyance at best and a misogynist at worst.

The fight between him and Ranma is also great, especially in how it, for the first time in the series, sells the idea that, at least for the really powerful martial artists, we are definitely talking about superhuman people. They’re not quite Dragon Ball Z, but they wouldn’t stand out in the original Dragon Ball. The way the fight ends is a little disappointing, partially because I just don’t care for the track used in the background, but on the whole, aside from a bit of a dull start, I don’t have much to complain about this time around.

You have to understand that, just because I love him so much, I was very tempted to make this second character spotlight all about Tatewaki Kuno. But I will have to save him for a later date, because instead I think it would be sacrilegious to use the second spotlight on anyone who isn’t the character who, in my opinion, is the other protagonist of the series: Akane Tendo.

Unlike Ranma, the question of who voices Akane is a lot simpler. In English, she’s voiced by a Canadian actress named Myriam Sirois. She has done...almost nothing else, Akane seems to definitely be her most well-known role. Honestly, I’m a little sad to see that, because I think she does an excellent job. She plays Akane with a good mix of sweetness and spice for her Tsundere-ish personality. This early in the series she’s still kind of getting into the character, but that’s also true for a lot of the actors.

In the original Japanese, she’s played by Noriko Hidaka. She actually has a long history as a voice actress, with some of her other well known roles including Kikyo from other famous anime based on a Rumiko Takahashi Manga, Inuyasha, and Near from Death Note. Like I said last week, I have some issues really getting a handle on the Japanese voice actors right now, partially because it’s my first time hearing their performances and partially because they’re acting in a language I don’t speak. Because of that...I don’t really know what to say about her performance so far. It is neither amazing nor terrible. Somewhere in-between.

With this episode, we’ve started getting a bit of a fuller look at Akane’s character. She’s a martial artist, and a strong one, though it’s fairly clear that Ranma has a bit of a lead on her in that department. She fights mostly with an emphasis on strength, which comes in handy against the regular athletes but leaves her a little less fortunate against the speedier Ranma.

She clearly cared about how she’s seen at school, being tired of the morning fights and not wanting people to know about her engagement to the new kid at school. Tied up with that is her issue with men. It’s clear that, no matter what she says, she doesn’t hate all boys. Aside from her crush on Dr. Tofu, she doesn’t seem to have much of a problem with her loving father.

The whole ‘badass girl who hates guys’ is a bit of an older trope these days. It kind of feels like Strawman Feminist at this point, but at the very least Akane’s frustration with men is kind of understandable. We don’t actually know when it started, so it’s possible that it literally developed because she’s spend all school year fighting off all the guys in her high school, who are all trying to beat her in a fight so she’ll have to date them, like she’s a prize to be won in a contest.

Aside from all that, the only other thing I can think of to bring up is...her violence. Against Ranma. As someone who has been in the Ranma fandom since shortly after becoming net-savvy, I am well aware that Akane has a small, yet vocal, hatedom, and part of it comes from the way she treats Ranma, namely in hitting him whenever she gets angry. The fact that Ranma won’t strike back, out of fairly outdated chauvinism, doesn’t exactly make it look good either.

This is something I’ve talked about on my other blog, Wright Wednesday, and it’s a rough subject to talk about. First of all, yes, in real life anyone, regardless of gender, who hits other people for things they say is committing assault, and it’s not okay. The romantic-ish relationship between them makes it even worse, as domestic violence is rarely treated seriously if it’s a woman harming a man.

Second, this anime is not depicting the real world. It is a weird harem shounen battle comedy anime, so the rules of what flies in the real world vs what flies in real life aren’t the same. What makes me upset about Akane being able to hit Ranma so often is how it’s framed. It’s okay for her to do that, you see, because she’s just a girl. No matter how strong she is, no matter how good a martial artist she is, it’s okay for her to hit Ranma because her gender makes it comedy. If it was trying to treat it for drama, it would be a hard slap to the face, which would equally enforce traditional gender roles. It’s very sexist, and I don’t really like it.

I will say, right now, that regardless of those issues, I really like Akane. I think she and Ranma are cute together when they’re not being dysfunctional, she’s adorable, and I’d say that by the end of the series she’s a very well-developed character.

At last it’s time to rank the episodes, and now that I have rewatched two episodes, it’s a real ranking! While some might want to give the first episode points for being, well, the first episode, I am going to say right off that I think the episode I covered today is superior. The fight scenes, Kuno’s introduction, and some great comedy made it very fun to sit through two more times. That means the current rankings are, from best to worst: 

Episode 2: School is No Place for Horsing Around

Episode 1: Here’s Ranma

Next time we’ll see what happened to Kuno and Ranma after they fell into the pool in Episode 3: A Sudden Storm of Love. See you then!

#episode 2 #school is no place for horsing around #ranma 1/2 #ranma saotome #akane tendo #tatewaki kuno #anime analysis #anime rewatch

[supervillainarchaeologist]

My thoughts on “Loki deserved better”

This is 100% about Loki in the MCU. I know there are many incarnations of Loki within Marvel, never mind the original deity or the other fictional characters who are based on him. There’s even dogs named after him. They’re all perfectly fine Lokis but this is about the MCU one. I just wanted to make that clear so fans of the other Lokis can skip (I’m not offended.)

Also yes Loki has zig-zagged and done a little dance across the villainy line a few times and yes he killed people. I’m not here to debate whether or not I should class a (as of 2018 only sort of) villain as one of my favourite characters of all time. I’m saying this because I know there are viewers who aren’t bothered about his fate and just go on their merry way, but there’s also the ever-present belief that if you are a fan of a (emphasis: fictional) villain somehow you excuse or even endorse their crimes in real life. I’m not here to convince anyone but in my mind MCU Loki’s entire journey has been much more complex than “well, he killed people” - and I think it goes without saying that in my non-fannish very much real life, I think murder is bad. I wish I didn’t feel like I have to say this but I do…

Also please see final couple of paragraphs before assuming I hated the film. I didn’t.

Anyway. MASSIVE spoilers for Infinity War under the cut.

Well, it happened. Marvel Studios finally (apparently) killed off Loki for good. I was prepared for it happening. The lack of Tom Hiddleston in-character in the promotional material gave it away quite pointedly. But even inviting Tom for a farewell press tour didn’t soften what felt like an epic slap in the face.

I actually wouldn’t have minded him dying for good…if he’d had more time to shine in his post-Ragnarok reluctant almost (but not quite) a good guy guise. You can believe his death scene was the ultimate closure to his redemption, I can see that interpretation and there were a couple of things I liked (more on that later) but the fact it occurred even before the title card felt like another “fuck you, he’s not that important” to his fans.

Honestly? I think the writers didn’t know what to do with him (or Heimdall who was equally unceremoniously dispatched) so this was just easier. It was also that tired narrative device of making the new Big Bad seem the most awful Big Bad yet.

Look, I don’t need my hand holding Marvel. I know Thanos is horrible. He kills half the Asgardian refugees off screen and wants to wipe out half of all life in the entire universe. I’m not an idiot. However, I am bitter than you chose my guy as the sacrifice to this really over-done point. Not to mention that Loki’s nature as a reformed villain means he’ll always have anti-fans who don’t particularly want to forgive him. That’s fine, I’m not the fandom police. But it does mean that for some viewers he probably got what he deserved - not exactly the unifying emotional impact they were going after is it?

If you wanted to shock people by killing a “beloved” character in the first five minutes why would you pick someone who has a hatedom almost as big as his fandom? I don’t know if you pay attention to the Internet Marvel or Russos or whoever but Loki is pretty divisive.

On the other hand those of us who for years have wanted nothing more than Thor and Loki to reconcile and fight together for the common good are varying shades of devastated. It was too brief, it felt like such a waste.

The other huge deal for me is why did it have to be so graphic, so relentlessly brutal? For a franchise that will have many younger fans (some who will happen to like villains) they sure dragged the behind out of that scene, as though they wanted you to suffer even more. Villain or not the character will have a lot of fans who are children. Trust me, a couple of decades or so ago I was that weird kid who liked the bad guys sometimes just as much if not more so than the heroes and I would’ve been traumatised.

But what was the most galling about this isn’t the fact I had to watch a character I’ve adored for over six years choke slowly, nor is it the salt-in-the-wounds of the audible snap of his neck and the fact his eyes are WIDE open as Thor cries over his dead body again. No, it’s the fact that for all the promise of “Infinity War deaths are permanent” you just know everyone who was dusted at the end is safe. As emotional as it was to watch Peter Parker plead with Tony (and well-acted by Tom Holland) you know he’ll be back. Even Gamora and Vision have very obvious outs. No Marvel, Russos or whoever, what you clearly meant to say was “only Loki’s death is permanent” because I wouldn’t put it past you to bring back Heimdall as well before you’d ever consider Loki again.

And then there’s Thor. Poor Thor! I’ve always considered Thor and Loki a package deal in the MCU in that I want them to annoy one another forever. How has Thor not turned completely evil himself or even insane after all the universe has put him through? You would perpahs forgive him, it’s completely unjust. After his maturing in ‘Thor’ he was always the more moral of the two brothers. But no matter what a part of him still cared for his little brother. He washed his hands of Loki for quite a while of course but because Thor is overall the better person he welcomed Loki back by the end of 'Thor: Ragnarok.' All they really had was each other by the end of that film and now that touching reunion is forever tainted by sadness. For what? So we know the Big Bad who has been built up for six fucking years is the Big Bad?

Seriously, why Marvel?

I get that Loki is a problem. He was probably never meant to be this popular. He was nearly killed off before but for whatever reason the studio had a change of heart. There’s only so many fake-outs you can do, I get it. But don’t you think Loki having apparently died already twice before actually cheapens his death here? You’ve also made it quite plain that this is final with the many on the nose references to the fact he’s dead. You may as well have disrespected Loki’s actual For Real death scene even more and flashed up a caption of “REALLY DEAD” over his broken corpse.

Unlike a lot of Loki fans I have no hope nor denial to comfort me. Some are theorising he disappears for a while as Hulk unsuccessfully beats down Thanos. They also argue a master sorcerer and god of mischief would never be so dumb during the rest of the scene. Pulling a tiny wee knife on Thanos was stupid and out of character. Loki knows Thanos, he knows he’s a threat, he knows a KNIFE would never work. Also post-Avengers Loki has been all about self-preservation at all costs so to basically commit suicide, love for Thor or not, was a really un-Loki move. It doesn’t help that across all his appearances his powers and intelligence have both been whittled down to a joke. The character overall has been treated like he isn’t permitted any genuinely awesome moments that don’t end in either getting his arse kicked or worse his untimely death.

Honestly guys, your theories are nice but I’m afraid it’s simply bad writing. They wanted Loki out of the picture and picked the easiest, most pathetic way to do it.

Thank goodness Tom Hiddleston is such an expressive actor that even in two minutes he acted circles around everyone. That’s the only thing I really liked about this scene, Tom gave it his all. No surprise really since other than the fans Tom often seems to be the only person involved in the filming/writing process who still gives a shit about Loki.

I did also like Loki being defiant to the end. “You’ll never be a god” he spat as his life drained from him. I only wish he could’ve said this to Thanos much later after helping the heroes in some way. I wanted to see how Marvel would deal with at least some of the Avengers adjusting to Loki suddenly being on their side. It had so much potential and was another opportunity wasted.

“The sun will shine on us again” is lovely enough in terms of last words to Thor but it’s such a mess when I think about it too hard. It implies hope where there isn’t any. Sure, there might be hope for Thor to eventually get out of this but there’s no hope for a reunion with his brother. As I said, the film bashed your skull open in underlining the fact Loki is Definitely Dead. Why give so many fans, especially younger fans who will grieve a lot longer than I will, such hope?

Then there's the fact that whether he meant it or not (more likely not) Thor's last words to Loki are "you really are the worst brother!" because he was gagged when Loki was murdered so all Thor could do was a muffled scream.

Basically, fuck almost everything about that opening 10 minutes.

A few people will probably point out the Tom was spotted on set in his original Avengers costume filming scenes that were clearly meant to be a flashback or part of some time travel solution to the end of Infinity War. At least we’ll get to see the character one last time but that Loki won’t be the Loki we knew in 2017. He will be 2012 Loki and as much as I enjoyed his turn as the snarling unrepentant villain I don’t want to go back to that. I was enjoying the character as a chaos agent flip-flopping between reluctant ally and mega troll. Reverting to 2012 Loki also unravels any of the progress made in repairing his relationship with Thor. I don’t want that. I’d rather he not be in the film at all if it’s just going to be a token cameo of a version of Loki from six years ago.

In terms of the character being finished there’s also the possibility that Tom Hiddleston asked to be written out. He’s played the character for almost a decade of his life now. Actors do deserve to be able to move on to other projects and unfortunately for all of us, humans visibly age. He can’t get away with playing a young thousand year old god forever. But even if it was a case of the actor wanting to be released, why didn’t he deserve a better send off? Being killed in the first five minutes doesn’t really make you memorable, it makes you an extra!

Writing all this it makes it sound like I didn’t enjoy Infinity War. I did. It's a great film. It's the pay-off for anyone who has been following the build up for the last ten years. It was SUPER depressing to watch as well because even though this is comic book world, the characters don't know that. Many of the performances sold the emotion and the desperation. Regardless of the fact I think his hand in Loki's death absolutely sucks, Thanos was a great villain. But he isn't truly sympathetic either. Not like Loki. Not like Killmonger. This film tried really hard to make you both understand but still hate Thanos. I'd say it succeeded.

I'm just a little annoyed that such a great film disposed of one of my favourite characters so friverously. I'm also pissed off because it ALWAYS feels like the Thor franchise and its characters are treated like the ugly stepsisters of the MCU. After Ragnarok it felt like Thor and his remaining allies might finally get their moment in the sun. However, I suppose I should've known that this feeling was too good to last seeing as the very same film saw fit to brutally murder the Warriors Three. That was also done in a whirwind of action that barely gave you time to process what on earth just happened.

The Thor franchise deserves better and although Thor is finally getting positioned in a way that lets him (and Chris Hemsworth) do much more, that's not much comfort to his entire family, Heimdall and his three best friends who have all been written out like they didn't even matter in the end.

As all good things must come to an end, I'm not sure if I'd entirely agree "Loki deserved better" but his brother and his fans certainly did!

#loki #marvel cinematic universe #iw spoilers #infinity war #MCU #sorry for the rant