#auroraworst

[aurorawest]

So I saw this post the other day:

Fellas, is it biphobic to love sex with a man more than a woman? Is it misogynistic to recognize that male and female bodies can and do in fact feel different? (can confirm from personal experience!)

Like, this post is from 2014 when purity culture was just starting to ramp up, so I sincerely hope both the OP and the writer of these tags have grown up, as they ask slash writers to do, but hoooo boy does this reek of 'cis women shouldn't write m/m fic because they're fEtIsHiZiNg iT!'

Also, Jesus Christ, a lot of people like the idea of One True Love, which doesn't mean they operate in their personal lives as if they can only love one person. But go off I guess, they're biphobic and hate women.

#sorry fam i have been stewing about this post for days #and now i have written my angry vent post thinking it would get it off my chest to just put the words down #but nope i am going to hit post #auroraworst

[aurorawest]

Random take: ppl making insane takes should go to the bathroom and watch non marvel movies

Look...if you just want to watch Marvel movies and watch Marvel shows, I guess that's cool. Where I get irritated is when people go off about their takes and analyses, and it's...um...very, very obvious that they're not well read (well...watched?).

Obviously, I'm an MCU stan. But most MCU stuff isn't super smart. It's not drivel, but it's not exactly doing anything new (with the exception, maybe, of WandaVision). It's fun, and I like it, but whenever I see people acting like it's the best, most intelligent thing ever, I'm like...uh...maybe you should broaden your horizons a bit.

Same goes for the people who act like it's the worst thing ever. Again. Broaden your horizons a bit. If you really think Loki was the worst television show ever made, I suggest you take a look at some other programming. And I would lump in the people who don't know the difference between a personal wishlist and an actual prediction based on the narrative. If you wanted Jotun Loki in the series, fine. But it was pretty obvious that that was N E V E R something that was going to happen. If you're upset we didn't get Jotun Loki? Also fine. If you're going off about how that makes the series objectively bad, and the writers are awful, then...hey, go outside and touch some grass.

#fandom wank #auroraworst

[aurorawest]

No spoilers for MoM, in case you haven't seen it yet, but BOY, the Loki stans are at it again bc Michael Waldron wrote MoM, and I'm just... at the End Of My Rope. They hate this man so much that they've continued their harassment on a separate MCU project for characters that they don't even care about. Buck wild.

I think I'm having a covid relapse just reading this.

What must it be like to be such a miserable human being that your only joy comes from tearing down other things?

#doctor strange in the multiverse of madness #doctor strange #doctor strange 2 #multiverse of madness #auroraworst #fandom wank

[aurorawest]

Stumbled on this...um...take today:

All troubling implications aside, this has resulted in one very important thing:

It's moved my icky, nasty Frostmaster fic way up the writing priority list. So look for me to perpetuate the narrative of Loki trading sexual favors for his survival in the coming months!

#auroraworst #frostmaster

[aurorawest]

The whole marvel doesn't like Loki thing doesn't hold up anymore anyway, especially since they made a series where they could've just let the character go. Maybe not every person involved in Loki's MCU arc liked him, but overall, they see his worth, even if it's just, this character is popular.

It never made any sense and I've always laughed when I see people say it. It really doesn't make sense since they made a series. Like. They were putting Loki skins on the buses at Disney World.

I am quite sure there are people who work at Disney and Marvel, two massive companies, that don't like, or even outright hate, Loki. But to act like it's some sort of company policy? Like they're sending out company memos reminding employees that they have to hold the line and hate Loki? Like Feige is sitting in his C suite throwing darts at a poster of Loki he's got pinned to the wall, which has been variously set on fire, had acid thrown on it, and been riddled with bullet holes over the years? Absolutely absurd. These people act like some higher power kept putting Loki in Marvel movies while the studio fought tooth and nail to keep him out, like Tom Hiddleston just showed up on set in full Loki costume and there was no earthly way to make him go away, so they just kind of threw up their hands and said, "WELL I GUESS LOKI ISN'T DEAD AGAIN."

It has never made an ounce of sense, not from day one.

#auroraworst

[aurorawest]

...the Loki fandom had some self-awareness?

#auroraworst

[aurorawest]

I think that's where some fans get confused that the writers hate loki more than thanos.

Yeah, I think you're right, and...look. My wife has had the pleasure of my eye roll as I've talked about this with her, and also my truly poetic scorn for this...what I will charitably call an 'opinion.'

Loki has an incredible death scene. Loki has the kind of death scene that is reserved for beloved characters. Maybe there were some writers in the room that didn't care about Loki, maybe there were some that outright didn't like him. I don't know. But there were obviously some in there that loved him. My god, he gives an incredible, heartfelt speech. He capstones his redemption arc. He accepts every part of himself. And then yeah, he gets a gruesome, graphic death, and I'm not saying I'm the expert here but in my experience of media (and as a writer myself), you don't give a fantastically gruesome death to a character you don't like. A fantastically gruesome death is memorable and mesmerizing, and a character has to deserve a gruesome death—not in like a, that-character-was-really-bad-so-they-deserve-an-awful-end way, but like—this character is A Big Deal, and their death should be A Big Deal, too.

I do think you could level legitimate criticisms at Loki's death. He's fridged for Thor's arc, and fridging is always kind of meh. His death is gruesome partly to signal that Thanos is Really Bad And A Serious Villain, and hot damn does it work in that scene, but overall in IW and EG, I think Thanos falls pretty flat as a villain. I mean...I couldn't even remember how he died lol, and he's the main villain. So in a way, Loki's death doesn't have good follow-through.

I actually think Loki's death is maybe the best scene in all of IW, but obviously serious YMMV there. I just think it's a really tightly written, emotionally devastating, effective scene that sets up the movie incredibly well. The problem is the rest of the movie doesn't necessarily deliver on the promise haha. And I like IW and YES, I like EG too! But IW's opener is like...SO good, and it sets high expectations.

Anyway, I think fans who believe that a gruesome death=writers not liking the character need to pick up a book or watch something besides the MCU (or frankly, something in the MCU that isn't Thor 1, Avengers 1, or TDW).

#loki #thanos #avengers 3 #avengers 4 #auroraworst

[aurorawest]

sometimes you see an event that makes you throw up in your mouth so hard that it feels like fireworks should go off when you block the account.

#auroraworst

[aurorawest]

i think my favorite genre of Loki wank post (and man, is it hard to choose) are the ones that talk about how ‘people still say Odin was a good father.’ and i’m like. where. where are these people saying Odin was a good father. there is never an example of this apparently widely held opinion in the fandom, and i, for one, would love to see some citations.

#fandom wank #auroraworst

[aurorawest]

just commiserating but it's SO funny to me that the loki series rewrite that some anti-show fans are doing is just a purple-tinted copy. they complain about everything about it and then can't come up with anything better 😂

I love how dramatic they are about it. The rest of us just write fix-it fanfiction when we don't like something in canon. But no, they are doing a rewrite of the series which will not be problematic because they aren't cowards like the rest of us sycophants and hangers-on.

Excuse me while I laugh/cry/scream into a pillow.

#fandom wank #auroraworst

[aurorawest]

my absolutely favorite thing about loki show antis is when they complain about the show "glorifying" something "unhealthy," and the unhealthy thing that they're complaining about was explicitly depicted as bad IN THE SHOW!!! they're like, "the tva and the timekeepers are literally taking away free will, it's so evil!" and I'm just like, "...yes??? that's the point???" Apparently we're now in territory where even just DEPICTING something in a piece of media, even when you explicitly depict it as Evil, is "problematic." 😬

Yeah, I've chatted about this a lot with people. It's like...guys...the reason you thought the TVA seemed authoritarian was because...literally everything about it was designed to look that way. You're not seeing something the rest of us aren't, you're seeing exactly what you're supposed to see. The "problematic content" wank is endlessly frustrating and juvenile to me.

I also just...don't get what they wanted the show to be. It seems like they wanted Loki to not face hardship or conflict or have anyone say anything bad or unfair to him ever, and like...wow yeah, that sounds like a shitty show? If I want to watch people tiptoe around each other so they don't hurt people's feelings, I can, idk, attend a meeting at work.* A character facing conflict is literally the most basic building block of western storytelling.

And like, again, if you don't like the show, that's cool!! I overall loved the show, but there were definitely some things I didn't love about it! You know, like a normal human being. I can certainly understand why people might not like it, and though I personally do not hold that opinion, it's totally valid. It's the constant berating of other fans/the creators/Marvel that's really wearing me down.

*to be clear, I do attend all my meetings at work, and I think it's very nice that we try not to hurt each other's feelings

#fandom wank #auroraworst

[aurorawest]

The crazies: *bash thor til sundown saying hes a terrible brother*

Also the crazies: Someone should've actually helped thor and not made fun of him in endgame

Make up ur minds

Yeah that's because it's actually more about shitting on the thing they supposedly like then making any kind of cogent point.

#auroraworst #fandom wank

[aurorawest]

The reblog on this post sure is a lot of words just to say anyone who liked the Loki series is an idiot with no taste. Pro tip to Loki’s Army: wrapping up your opinion and insults in pseudo intellectualism doesn’t mean it’s anything other than opinions and insults.

#auroraworst

[aurorawest]

I mean awful things happen to pretty much all the characters. But if everything was great all the time there would be no plot right. Putting Stephen in an endless loop of deaths would imply marvel absolutely detested this character if that kind of mindset was believed.

Yeah you're totally right, but the way fandom acts a lot (most?) of the time, it's like A Bad Thing happening to the character is as sign of bad writing and that the writers hate them (and the audience, and specifically fans of that character).

The reality is just...plots usually involve bad things happening. Bad things create conflict, conflict drives stories. Like, children understand this. My four year old niece intuitively understands this.

#auroraworst

[aurorawest]

I'm (mostly) joking but if more gruesome death equals more respected character how does Odin's little shimmer of to the distance in Ragnarok compare lol.

Hahaha I mean, one could argue that no one really likes Odin, right?

But actually, Odin originally did have a more gruesome death, but test audiences didn't like it (and they were right)—so the Norway scene was done in reshoots.

In all seriousness, I definitely didn't mean in my earlier post that there's a 1:1 correlation between how gruesome a death is and how beloved the character is, just that I don't think a gruesome death is really ever a sign that the writers don't like a character. There's more to a death scene than the actual method of expiration. How does the death move the story forward? How are the other characters affected by the death? Is there resolution to the dying character's story in their death?

Also—and I only say this because you used the word, anon, and it's not necessarily directed at you but at fandom at large—I wish we could stop talking about creators 'respecting' characters in the sense that we should treat them like we would people we love. They aren't real people. Their purpose is 100%, completely and absolutely, to serve a narrative purpose, whether that's to entertain, or to explore a theme, or to teach a moral lesson, or whatever. But fandom talks about 'respecting' characters as though cherishing and being kind to them is a prerequisite to being able to write them. I don't respect the Grandmaster, but I fucking LOVE writing him, the nasty piece of shit. Half the time I don't respect Loki! When I write, what I respect is that I'm trying to present these fictional, fake people as fully realized people so that I can make my readers care about them and what's happening...but at the end of the day, I also expect my readers to understand that they aren't real.

#odin #writing #auroraworst

[aurorawest]

Something that gets me.. why can't people just not like a thing without trying to prove why morality is with them? Like.. there doesn't always need to be a righteous reason... Just don't like it if you don't.. but it doesn't make the rest of us morally wrong if we don't find it "problematic."

I suspect there are a lot of intertwined broader societal and cultural reasons for the rise of purity culture, and once you start looking around you kind of start spotting it in a lot of different places, not just fandom.

But yeah, I agree with you. If you hate something, you don't need another reason besides 'I just do.' You don't need to use your morality as a cudgel to bludgeon the creators or other fans into A) listening to you (they won't) or B) driving them out of the fandom (actually kind of likely). There are lots of things in the MCU I don't like, even hate, and my reasons are myriad and often petty. I would never ascribe any kind of moral value to any of them.

#fandom wank #auroraworst