#loki DID kill people! and he was the antagonist while he did so! he was also tortured and being mind whammied but whatever lets ignore that!

[allthislove]

Thinking about the Namor discourse, I'm reminded of the Killmonger discourse from back when the first movie came out. Almost everyone agreed that he was right, but that his methods were extreme, and that Nakia had already suggested the same things without the violence. Killmonger's stance was... surprisingly just like Namor's. Basically burn the world, take it over (although Namor seems to have little differentiation between poor, oppressed people of the surface and the oppressors of the surface. At least that's how it seems.)

But there was also this huge rise in fans of Killmonger. He's a cool, confident character, played by a handsome actor, who was fun and cool to watch. He was definitely killed off too soon, though. Marvel had that problem of killing their villains back then, when comics heroes usually encounter their villains many times.

Now the main difference between Killmonger and Namor is that Namor isn't a villain. Killmonger comes from a straight forward villain character in the comics. Namor is an antihero in the comics. He has a long-standing feud with T'Challa and Wakanda, and they clash often for reasons similar to this movie. But Namor isn't supposed to be hated as a villain. He's coming from a completely unique perspective than everyone on the surface. Comparing Tenoch Huerta's Namor to the Namor in the comics, they're very similar in that their main goal is the safety and protection of their underwater society. Sometimes, that aligns Namor with the surface heroes. Often, he clashes with them, either because of his own extreme views (burn the world) or because they're getting up to something that puts Atlantis in harm's way (Talokan in the MCU).

So, when I'm seeing a lot of like... takedowns of people who like Namor, and who are attracted to Tenoch, and comments like "Anything for a sexy face" and "y'all wouldn't do this for a Black man" it feels very much... to me... like unfamiliarity with the character. Namor is a superhero, not a villain. We're not supposed to see him like Loki or Thanos. That's why they've been billing him as "the first Mexican SUPERHERO" in the press tour. He is an antagonist for Wakanda a lot of the time, but that's because Marvel comics are actually quite good at nuances. A lot of characters aren't strict hero/villain archetypes in Marvel comics. Look at Magneto and Professor X, as an example. You're gonna tell me Professor X is a moral good superhero and Magneto is a moral bad supervillain? Especially in the current comics where all Mutants live in Krakoa together and have a society protected from the rest of the world. You're gonna tell me Iron Man is a strictly good superhero? Like, nuance is how the comics work. That's what Coogler is actually really good at bringing to his MCU projects and it's why he's the perfect director to even handle a character like Namor.

Coogler knows how to bring the nuance. It's why everyone loved Killmonger, too, even if we didn't agree with him. (Though some of y'all did.) Nuance shows us why Killmonger wants to do what he's doing.

As far as "wouldn't do this for a Black man" takes... isn't that disingenuous when talking to fans of the Black Panther franchise? It's not like the franchise was small or didn't do well. It was one of the most successful movies of the Infinity Saga, up there with Infinity War and Endgame. Most people in these tags HAVE gone up for a Black man. T'Challa was not lacking in love. Neither was Killmonger. Or even M'Baku. How many oneshots I read about M'Baku taking care of his "vegetarian children" because of that one off, throwaway line "Just kidding. We are vegetarians." (Loved the callback to it in this movie with him eating a carrot while talking to the council!) People liking Tenoch Huerta and thinking his version of Namor is attractive has nothing to do with whether or not people find the Black men attractive. But for what it's worth, THERE'S ONLY ONE MAIN BLACK MAN IN THIS MOVIE and that's M'Baku. Unless you expect a bunch of teen and 20-something fans to go up over the elders on the council. T'Challa has passed, W'Kabi is in jail and never shown, Killmonger does show up for a cameo but that's not a main role. All we get is M'Baku. And people are going up for him, because people love M'Baku. This is a movie about a whole country of badass Black women. The only male characters of consequence are M'Baku, Namor, and Ross.

Namor is just a shiny new character and again, not a villain AND provides representation to an entirely different group of people. People are allowed to be excited to see an Indigenous character in a Marvel movie. It doesn't mean they don't love the Black characters in the movie.

As far as shipping, there's really only two choices and that's Shuri/Riri and Shuri/Namor. It's surprising that y'all are upset about Shuri/Namor, as that ship was obvious. You can dislike a ship without pretending everyone who likes it made it up based on nothing. Media literacy is understanding what a story is trying to do, and the Namor and Shuri scenes before the attack on Wakanda were trying to make you see them as a potential romance. I saw one take saying that they might possibly be switching Namor's obsession with Sue Storm into an obsession with Shuri (which is ehhhhhh and I kinda hope not, but would work with the storyline they're building).

With Riri, you get an easy ship kinda in the same grain as ScienceBros, and they are really good friends in the comics, so that ship is a pretty surefire one going forward.

I don't really like Shuri and M'Baku, but I could see it happening more than any of them in canon. I only don't like it because he reads very "older brother" with her and it would feel like an extreme left turn for them to date. But I could see the movies trying that pairing on some like... "good for Wakanda" stuff.

(Then there's Namor/M'Baku which is really funny, and I like your minds 🤣 Based on the "fish man" stuff alone.)

Anyway I'm getting off track, but basically, I think there's a lot of extreme behavior going on in the tags and I think it really boils down to this being your first introduction to Namor, because there's no reason to be angry with people for liking him. You're gonna have to get used to him, too, because he's a Problem, tm, and I fully expect him to insert himself into so many conflicts and give the Avengers grief, too. And I hope we get a main universe (I refuse to call the MCU 616) Illuminati with him and Strange and them, too.

#marvel #namor #wakanda forever #wakanda forever spoilers #Black panther #black panther spoilers #spoilers #shuri #T'Challa #Killmonger #M'Baku #w'kabi #riri williams

[sailor-hufflepuff]

I’ve been musing more on my villain binge. As a teenager, I DID NOT GET why so many people liked villains. I wanted a knight in shining armor, treat me right, get along with my mama boy in real life, so why would I want something different for the fictional heroines I lived vicariously through?

Zutara was my first “villain ship”, although I would have passionately argued at the time that Zuko wasn’t a villain, he was an antagonist - not evil, but a child soldier who had been brainwashed into believing he was truly helping the world.

I found the similarities between him and Katara fascinating. The loss of their mothers, their love for their nations, the absolute conviction in doing what they believe is right… the way that, even fighting, they were equals.

Fast forward a few years to Loki. How an abused child desperate for attention did something half prank, half sincere attempt to protect his people from Thor’s wildly unprepared rule spun out of control in ways beyond his ability to handle. The psychotic break that came from his discovery of his true parentage in the worst possible way. I myself had a mental breakdown when I was seventeen when I discovered the truth of my own birth, so that struck me especially hard.

Then in “The Avengers” he was so OBVIOUSLY not in control. The blue eyes. The rote recitation. The signs of torture. The way his “master plan” involved being as obvious a target for the heroes as possible. This was not a villain, this was a victim desperately trying to mitigate the damage he was being forced to do.

Kylo Ren - Ben Solo - took me a while. I was pretty unsympathetic with him at first; I don’t care if your parents fought a lot when you were a kid, that’s no reason to turn into a Nazi. And then it was revealed exactly what Snoke did to him - he’d been hearing voices in his head SINCE UTERO. He could sense everyone’s thoughts and feelings and knew that they were afraid of him, but was too little to know why. He found out that he was the grandson of the second greatest evil thr galaxy had ever known - and that his family had lied to him about it. (See above mental breakdown at 17). And then his parents sent him away, his uncle tried to kill him, and in the ensuing fight everyone he knew turned on him. Where else could he go, but to the voice in his head promising safety?

Once again, this is not a villain. This is a victim, trapped in a nightmare, being used as a tool by a madman to cause harm, and suffering for it

Finally, the Darkling. I’ve written on this topic before, and so have so many other better skilled than I, so I’ll keep it simple. I don’t understand how we are supposed to view the leader of an oppressed minority, trying to prevent the genocide of his people, as a bad guy. Especially when he’s spent the past seven hundred years trying to do things the peaceful way, only to fail again and again and again. What choices did he really have? His actions were acts of war, and arguably caused the least loss of life possible.

So now, I see posts decrying women who ship villains. They say we’re supporting abuse. They say we’re taken in by a pretty face. They say that we’re just rebellious teenage girls, and when we grow up we’ll know better.

My experience was the opposite. As a teenager I was so obsessed with black and white morality, with being a good person, that I couldn’t see the nuances. I couldn’t see that often, the villains were right. I had no grace for those whose lives gave them few choices.

There are still villains I don’t like. Most, actually. Those who kill or hurt for fun. Those in it for their own power and gain. Those who take their pain and lash out against the universe with no cause. Bullies. I don’t like them. I don’t ship them. But I don’t judge people who do, because I don’t know what story they’re seeing. What traumatic event their identifying with. What injustice the villain is trying to correct that they have to deal with in their everyday lives.

We come to fiction for different reasons. Maybe we want a way to explore our pain. Maybe we’re looking for an escape from a dark world. Maybe we feel powerless, and want to live vicariously through someone powerful. Maybe we’ve suffered, and want to see a world where abusers are punished. Maybe we just want to look at pretty people.

All are equally valid. All should be respected. There is a place for all of us in this wonderful online world of fandom, and no one should EVER be belittled for what they like in fiction.

Because you know what? Fiction is first and foremost ENTERTAINMENT, and sometimes the villains have the best stories.

#star wars #fandom #darklina #shadow and bone #fanfic #atla #avatar: the last airbender #zuko #zutara #kylo ren #ben solo #Reylo #the darkling #aleksander morovoza #Loki #mcu #marvel mcu #mine #meta #fandom discourse #villain/heroine #villains

[probablynot-john]

So I've been rewatching the Thor movies since I finished season 2 of Loki, and I noticed something:

Remember when Loki finds out he's adopted in Thor 1, and Odin tells him, "a baby, alone and suffering. Laufey's son. " Telling Loki, that he was abandoned, and that Odin rescued him from the frost giant Tempel.

And sure, we are told that the frost giants were the bad guys, so that all seems believable. Odin is very imperfect (and sometimes an antagonist, and a pretty bad father), but he's never a vilian.

So Loki would have died, right? If Odin never "saved" him? After all, when your all-powerful yells "your birth right was to die" that seemes pretty certain.

BUT WAIT! didn't we get and entire episode of What If disproving that!?

YES! YES WE DID! We now know that if Odin never found Loki, if Thor was an only child, EVERYTHING WOULD'VE BEEN FINE! Arguably things would've been better! Not as good a story but fewer people would've died.

If Loki was raised by his actual parents he'd still be a prick but at lease he wouldn't be evil, and he'd still love Thor! And he's still a prince, which means: ODIN STOLE A BABY! Maybe from his perspective he really did save Loki. But he was wrong!

Now you maybe thinking, "what if Laufey did abandon his son?" And wasn't trying to protect him by hiding him in the tempel while he's people were being slaughtered? And what if Laufey was just as bad a father, and Loki killed him to take the throne? Well, maybe. We don't know how Loki was raised from that episode.

The point is that Odin still stole a baby, and I can't stop thinking about it.

#loki laufeyson #odin is not the greatest #thor odinson #marvel #marvel cinematic universe #what if #thore movies

[junebugwriter]

Loki Season 2 Doesn't Understand Loki

The fundamental flaw in a season that means nothing

Spoilers below.

I think we need to talk about Loki.  

People who know me know that I don’t like superhero and comic book movies. I love them. And that’s why I’m so critical of them. I can blame my brother on getting me into comics in high school, but the fact that long after that I keep coming back to the well speaks to what I love about them. Comics are the blending of prose and visual artistry, of character and medium. Every comic is a conversation between artists. Television and film, likewise, are another variation on that same theme.  

However, like any other kind of media, its greatest strengths can also fall victim to their greatest enemy: the companies that own them. 

Marvel Studios and the Marvel Cinematic Universe began as a simple concept: translate the idea of comic book universes onto the big screen. Let the comic company own the movies that bring their stories to the masses. When Disney bought Marvel, lock stock and barrel, it also brought truckloads of cash and prestige with it. This proved to be a Faustian bargain in the end, because what happens when the infinite money machine begins to grow too large to handle? Things begin to break down. 

Loki Season 2 is this metaphor brought to life. 

Everything Will Be The Same Ever Again 

The first season ended promisingly enough. Loki and his alternate timeline gender swapped variant Sophie finally find He Who Remains, the man behind the curtains that the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been building up to. He’s the one who pulls the strings, paves the road, and decides the Sacred Timeline ™—in other words, this is the man who decides Marvel Canon.  

Season 1 ended exactly as I hoped it would: Sophie, tired of being controlled, did the thing that gods of mischief and chaos are supposed to do. She killed the man behind the curtain. In so doing, she unspooled the Sacred Timeline ™ in the name of free will, allowing for infinite universes to be borne from the infinite choices made every moment by every being in existence. She gave birth to the multiverse. She broke the system.  

Obviously, this could not last.   

Loki season 1 promised that the universe would be forever altered by the actions of Loki and Sophie, and for a while, this seemed to be the case. Most of the recent phase of Marvel output has revolved, for better or worse, with the introduction of the concept of multiple realities. This has been used somewhat as more or less a vehicle for Brand Integration ™ and less as a vehicle for, you know, good storytelling. Yes, we’ve been promised Fantastic Four and X-men movies, but those aren’t even really in the works currently. They’ve been stuck in development hell for years since acquisition. All we’ve gotten is a couple of winks and nods, a musical sting, and N’amor, which all things being fair, was great, but N’amor has always been his own thing and a mutant in name only, story-wise. Otherwise, it’s been fine, but far from the promised chaos that Loki season 1 alluded to. 

Additionally, there’s the problem of character. Loki in mythology is less a villain but more of an antagonist, a trickster character that causes problems and meddles in the affairs of others for little reason else besides “he wanted to.” He’s mercurial by nature, and that works very, very well for mythology. It works for the purposes of “this is how the world is, this is why things are the way they are, and this is how the world will end.” Loki’s presence is not malevolent, but rather genuinely chaotic. He will do what he wants, and usually only to satisfy himself. He often seems unable to really control himself, let alone anyone else. He does things because he loves just making things happen, and if he winds up with what he wants, it’s all the better.  

In the comics and the films, he’s much more cast as a villain. In the films, he desires the throne of Asgard, to be the rightful ruler of people. Failing to win Asgard, he seeks out Earth as an agent of Thanos. Failing that, he meanders long enough in the background to have fun when dealing with Thor, and that’s about it. He finally dies an ignoble death by Thanos, and that was to be the end of him. Loki the TV series is not the same Loki we saw die. This Loki is an alternate timeline variant, and after having his ego broken by the Time Variance Authority, he seeks out another variant, Sophie, who has been causing problems for the TVA. 

If all that gives you a bit of a headache, don’t worry. That’s just the comic fan experience. Comics, and superhero stories, are of a kindred spirit with Soap Operas: not only are they highly melodramatic, often made up on the fly, and filled with colorful characters, but they’re also designed to go on FOREVER. That’s the beauty of them. The characters, and the universe, frequently default to a certain status quo. Sure, every few years, something comes along that promises to Change the Universe Forever, but that often amounts to one weird tweak and then it's back to the races as usual. The bad guy comes along to challenge the hero, hero must thwart whatever plan the villain has, and all is well. That’s the rhythm of the comic book story, and that works quite well for executives... to a point. So, what happens when people start to get tired of the same old story? They change the status quo on paper, and hope nobody notices that the structure of it all is still intact.  

That was the promise of Loki Season 1. See? We have a multiverse now! Please, be distracted by this CHAOS long enough to not realize that we are still in control of everything, and everything is fine.  

That last sentence? That’s the plot of season 2. See, Sophie killed He Who Remains, and the multiverse exists. The TVA is designed by HWR to maintain the Sacred Timeline ™. With the Sacred Timeline ™ now in chaos, everything in the universe is going haywire. That means timelines are unraveling. The plot now follows Loki, his hetero life mate Mobius, and a cast of fun, colorful characters, racing against time to keep time from unspooling, and the multiverse from completely falling apart. 

Mr. Loki’s Wild Ride 

“Loki” is a show meant to turn Loki from the god of mischief and chaos to... a hero, somehow. One who wants to fight to maintain an autocratic, bureaucratic organization that wasn’t very good at its job in the first place because the alternative is... chaos. According to the plot, this chaos takes the form of nothingness. Lack of existence. See, without an imposed order, nothing can exist! Therefore, reality NEEDS someone or some entity to maintain order in some way so that everything can keep on existing.  

But why is this the case? Why does reality need a temporal loom or a man behind the curtain? The show doesn’t do a very good job of explaining why everything ceases to exist the moment that the Temporal Loom, the machine that maintains the Sacred Timeline ™ other than “that’s just how it all works,” and really, it doesn’t even tell us that. It just shows time unraveling, sans explanation. How did time exist before the Temporal Loom, you ask? Loki, for all its technobabble and endlessly recurrent exposition, is not actually interested in explaining that bit. You see, it was chaos and war and death before, or it’s nothingness. Which is it? Why is it? It’s a nihilistic and frustrating bit of worldbuilding that leads to nothing.  

This nihilism is a kind of narrative reinforcement technique. By the end of it, Loki has figured out how to control time itself, after much trial and error, as well as another conversation with He Who Remains. Yet in that conversation, he learns a fundamental truth about the MCU: He who makes the difficult decisions gets to sit on the throne. He Who Remains is supposedly one such person. In his stead, at the end, Loki does the same. He wrests control of the timelines, bundles them up into a cape, and seats himself on the throne of He Who Remains. As such, he recreates Yggdrasil, the world tree of Norse mythology, the tree upon which all the realms rest. You see? Everything goes back to normal, now that someone is in control. 

But wait a minute. Why would Loki ever make this choice? Loki early in the show figures out he doesn’t want a throne. He doesn’t want control. All he ever wanted was to be loved and known and understood. That is the true desire at the heart of his character. It’s beautiful, and poignant, and speaks to my own heart. In Sophie, he found someone who does know and understand him. Is it narcissistic to love a gender variant of yourself? Probably! But it makes sense for him. Because he is a mercurial person. He doesn’t really understand even himself, and because of that, it results in mischief and chaos. That’s who he is. He is a chaos god.  

By the end of the show though, he’s learned and grown... what? To love order? To love bureaucracy? To love control? That’s what it’s saying when he takes the throne! I understand that this is Loki learning what it means to be a hero, but is that really what it means? To let go of your defining characteristic? To lose what makes you... you? To undergo true ego death so that the world itself can keep on spinning upon your skeleton? For all its over-explanation, Loki the show isn’t interested in answering much of anything. It’s poetic that he gives up his life so that reality can continue, but this seems rather pointless, in the end. Instead of embracing himself, he denies his identity to sit on a throne he doesn’t want. That’s no god of chaos and mischief. That is the god of stability, order, and the status quo.  

That’s not Loki.  

Pay no attention to the executive behind the curtain 

I understand the mercenary reasons for these choices. I understand that the universe must keep spinning, and the infinite money machine must keep on making money. But to do so, they need to kill the defining characteristics of their beloved characters, and that just makes it all so thin, flimsy and frustrating. There are some amazing moments in this show! Everything with Sophie, Mobius, and Ouroboros is excellent. The characters make this nonsense story shine, long enough to make you hopefully realize that it doesn’t even make internal sense. 

As someone who analyses stories for a living, it’s impossible to see this apart from the concept of capitalist realism, whose central maxim is this: It’s easier to believe in the end of the world rather than the end of capitalism. Substitute “capitalism” with “the underlying bureaucracy upon which the world rests and runs itself” and that becomes just the text of Loki. It’s easier to imagine the end of reality than the end of the TVA, and the end of the autocrat who sits on top of the pyramid. The Universe is run by a corrupt pyramid scheme, but it’s that or nothingness! So, you NEED someone to run things like this, otherwise it’s all void.  

That’s what this story is saying—but why does it need to say this? Why do we need someone sitting on a throne? For a character like Loki whose entire character is anarchy incarnate, this simply just rings hollow.  

And so, I am frustrated. I want to like “Loki.” It has some great moments and is a lot of fun. But at the end of the day, it does the character of Loki wrong but having to reinforce the status quo, and when your central character who is defined by causing mischief, maintaining the status quo is a terrible way to end your series.  

#blog #tv #television #loki #marvel #marvel cinematic universe

[dragonflight203]

Mass Effect 1 replay, first part of Bring Down The Sky:

-My first playthrough, I did not realize this was DLC and did it quite early. I was impressed by its nature and thought all sidequests would be like that. Quite disappointing to realize most were of a much smaller scope.

-Loki – Another potential victim of the Reapers? An ancient cataclysm caused its elliptical orbit and terrain. There are subterranean tunnels that were first thought to be made because some were so regular, although later it was decided they were natural.

-Asteroid X57 – Hackett must be sleeping on the job. The asteroid is on a collision course with the first human colony and he doesn’t call you when you enter the system. You have to read the asteroid’s description and then choose to land.

-Asteroid X57 is a prelude to Omega – an asteroid mined out and then used as a base. Which one did the Bioware team come up with first?

-The Normandy VI provides the background as you land on the planet. I know this was probably to reduce the number of voice actors, but it stands out as unusual.

-Ditto that it’s the Normandy VI that warns you when you’re out about to go out of bounds. Why couldn’t they use Joker’s existing line for that?

-Why are there rocks floating above the asteroid. Is this ever explained? I assume it’s related to mass effect shields or artificial gravity.

-The DLC is set on making you hate batarians. When you first land you have an icon on your map for a Survey Station. Go there, and you find the body of G. Mendel. You’re told he probably surrendered, was badly beaten, then shot in the back of the head.

-This is the only time in the game when turrets feel dangerous, and it’s mostly because they’re grouped together and retract unless you’re close to them. Even then, with careful positioning you can take them on one at a time

-This is the first time seeing Batarians in the game. Again, the game sets out to make them antagonistic. Shepard – with no dialogue wheel, unusual for ME1 – says “Batarians” in a tone of disgust.

-There are also varren. This is the only time they show up in ME1 besides Feros (unless they’re in the final attack on the Citadel and I’ve forgotten)

-The commands the batarians give the varren aren’t translated

-Shepard speaks without a dialogue wheel again when leaving the base. “Hey” to Simon

-All variants of the intro where Shepard gives an introduction, they introduce themselves as the Alliance.

While this fits the situation – a human colony being attacked – it breaks the trend of spectre = paragon/neutral and Alliance = neutral/renegade

This DLC seems to be a transition to ME2 with that change and the autodialogue.

-The awfulness of batarians continues. They smash the face plates of people in vacuum and their varren eat people alive

-Most dialogue (all?) point out that these batarians are probably acting alone and not on the Hegemony’s orders

-If you go renegade, Simon does not want Terra Nova used as an excuse to invade the batarians. Good guy

-For an engineer, Simon sure has an in-depth understanding of what will happen if the asteroid hits the planet.

-Why do the batarians kill the Survey crew? They deliberately sought out two of the stations to kill them. For fun? To be thorough?

-The construction camp and the grenade storage are easily missable. I think I did miss them on my first playthrough.

I get the impression the grenade storage was an apology for not being able to easily restock grenades in the main game.

-The batarians didn’t loot R. Montoya’s body, but Shepard did not even hesitate. I already have multiple copies of that amp; hope their family didn’t want it.

-Ironic that the defense drones Montoya activated did nothing to help them, since Montoya left the station, but they do come after me. I’m the good guy, I swear. Please ignore this amp I’ve acquired.

#Mass Effect #mass effect 1 #mass effect 1 replay

[according-to-the-laura]

StackedNatural Day 165: 2x19, 13x20

StackedNatural Masterpost: [x]

April 26, 2022

2x19: Folsom Prison Blues

Written by: John Shiban

Directed by: Mike Rohl

Original air date: April 26, 2007

Plot Synopsis:

Sam and Dean allow themselves to be arrested in order to investigate a series of murders inside a penitentiary. However things get complicated when FBI agent Henricksen shows up to take over their case.

Features:

Dean’s Blue Steel, Victor Henriksen returns with a list of charges, Dean being unsettlingly comfortable with prison life, the ghost of an evil nurse, breaking out of prison, Sam and Dean getting their asses saved by a very cool lawyer. 

My Thoughts:

This is such a fun episode. I didn’t take too many notes because I was having a good time just watching. I always love an undercover episode, especially in the early seasons when they were too young to just go the FBI route every single time. I like that this is the last time we see Henriksen in Stacked too, not his death. 

Despite Sam making fun of Dean for fitting in too well, they honestly both work so well in the situation. Dean can blend in with any crowd and is great at hustling poker, and Sam is friendly enough that he can make friends with Randall enough to get the info that they need. 

I like a case where they’re trapped with the danger - if they were anywhere else, they could get a motel room and leave a haunted space while they figure out what’s going on, but they have to think on their feet with this one. Also, this ghost looks genuinely scary and the special effects are great. 

I loved Henriksen’s whole plot, and I wish we’d gotten more episodes on it. Having there be real-world, extremely dangerous consequences to their actions ups the stakes of whatever cover they use day-to-day. Plus, it’s fun to listen to the ever-growing list of charges against them. 

Notable Lines:

“You think you’re funny.” “I think I’m adorable.”

“This is, without a doubt, the dumbest, craziest thing we've ever done. And that's in a long, storied career of dumb and crazy.”

“Just because these people are in jail, doesn't mean they deserve to die.”

Laura’s (completely subjective) Episode Rating: 8.9

IMdB Rating: 8.7

13x20: Unfinished Business

Written by: Meredith Glynn

Directed by: Richard Speight Jr.

Original air date: April 26, 2018

Plot Synopsis:

Gabriel is back and drags Dean and Sam into his plot for revenge on the demigods who sold him to Asmodeus. Meanwhile, Jack's growing confidence leads to reckless decisions that could put others in harm's way.

Features:

More Sabriel-bait, the Norse pantheon, Apocalypse-world Kevin Tran, the real Loki, Jack as one of Mary’s boys, Jack realizing he can’t save everyone, Gabriel keeping a promise.

My Thoughts:

This is kind of a weird episode that doesn’t track super well for me, and I think part of that is on purpose and part of it isn’t. As is common with Apocalypse World episodes, the A plot and B plot are almost entirely divorced from each other, even thematically. 

In terms of the Gabriel half of the episode, it was reasonably fun. The stylization didn’t really work for me, I’m assuming because I’ve never seen Kill Bill. The Sabriel-bait continues to be strong in this episode, which continues to be completely wild and unnecessary in a hilarious way. We’ve got Sam patching Gabriel up, checking in on him, paralleled with him in terms of torture suffering and revenge. And then for some reason Dean is the one who wants to hear stories of him fucking pornstars, which, whatever. The effects aren’t very good on the Norse pantheon, and they join the “just some guy” gang of antagonists that they didn’t have a very big budget for. Sleipnir looks like a Ken doll. I did like that Gabriel’s capture got explained, I was annoyed by that when he first got brought back. 

I have a grudge against Apocalypse World in general, but this arc isn’t as bad as many of the others. It makes sense that Jack needs to learn a lesson about tactics and strategy at this point in his development, and I really like any scenes between him and Mary. It makes Mary’s death more meaningful to see the relationship they had before he lost his soul, when she counted him as one of her boys. I love seeing him instinctively sheltering her in his wings.

I don’t like the alternate universe versions of characters generally, but Osric Chow kills it with his acting, and I do actually think this makes sense in terms of the character that we loved in the original timeline. He’s definitely my favourite of all the alternate-world characters that have appeared. 

I think the talk between Dean and Sam at the end of the episode was interesting, and it did explain Dean acting extremely annoying and stupid (safe to say this isn’t an episode for the Deangirls), but I wish we saw more of both of their trauma and ptsd in dealing with Michael and Lucifer again. Dean acting reckless and sidelining Sam makes sense in that context, but I want to see more emotional reactions now and then.  

Notable Lines:

“Hiya, handsome. You ready to die?”

“Face it, old friend, you're a joke. You're a failure. You live for pleasure. You stand for nothing. And in the end, that's exactly what you'll die for.” “You first.”

“I don't care what happens to me. I never really have. But I do care about what happens to my brother.”

Laura’s (completely subjective) Episode Rating: 8.1

IMdB Rating: 8.1

In Conclusion: I miss Cas :(

<< Previous Day  |  Next Day >>

#Stackednatural #supernatural #spn #2x19 #Folsom Prison Blues #13x20 #Unfinished Business

[worstloki]

antis will be like “murder and sexy are loki’s only qualities” on a post that is explicitly explaining in thorough detail with examples provided why those are in fact not his only qualities 

#ok so if they're his only qualities.... i need receipts #you can't unironically reduce a character and then ironically have none arguments left genocide #''yeah okay so loki did X thing but he still killed people'' CONGRATULATIONS! You picked up on that! Gold star for you! #loki DID kill people! and he was the antagonist while he did so! he was also tortured and being mind whammied but whatever lets ignore that! #now what is your point here #because... and i don't mean to alarm anyone here but....... sometimes.... people in action movies...... kill.........people........... #and he didn't kill anyone other than coulson on-screen so there's that too #in fact if it's about the murder then #im pretty sure tony's fictional capitalist money kills more than 80 every time mr stark stops to file his nails instead of donate to charity #thor's indoctrinated xenophobia killed more jotuns in 10 minutes than loki did in new york #pretty sure that 1 hospital fire Nat lit wasn't a very moral thing to do #and oh! oh no! clint's 5-year-murder-spree! the horror! #who is going to bring up that time crashing the triplet HYDRA zappy kill ship things smashed into a building or two bc of Cap and co. #the avengers are CANCELLED #from now we get the Bruce and Loki show where there is only safe science where they mix water and baking powder with full PPE gear #rocket raccoon has like 15 counts of arson why don't i see any posts about how evil he is :/ half the gotg are literally thief mercenaries #ROCKET has FOURTEEN more canon counts of setting fire to things than loki does!!! #come on folks! #throw some creativity into the anti posts #groot anti posts when

[valkyrieandstrangeridingaragorn]

Have you ever read this [link] The Tragedy of Loki of Asgard Is the Unaddressed Trauma of Adoption

Yeah I had read it a while ago and I disagree on several points. Mainly the premise that Odin "adopted" Loki, it wasn't an adoption at all, it was fostering.

Another point of contention is when they claim Loki died in the Statesman "in service to Odin". To me when Loki said Odinson he was speaking to Thor, confessing his love for him, affirming his loyalty to him and telling him he considered himself his brother - all that because he knew he wasn't making it out of the ship alive and he probably also wanted Thanos to hear it so perhaps the deal would be "kill me but spare him". It had nothing to do with Odin.

I also disagree with what they say about the audiences being left to see him as a villain from the beginning, that's not true at all. We all have been quite critical of Ragnarok's treatment of Loki but his arc in the first Thor was brilliant and he started it off as antagonist and in the end although he did certain things he shouldn't have done he might have become a villain but the audience knows the context and the why of his actions, he's 100% a sympathetic character.

Then in The Avengers we're given scenes that prove he was under some form of mind control or influenced by the Mind Stone, he might be a villain but it's spelled out for the audience that Loki is not doing this alone. (And by the way, in that article they claim twice that Loki had plotted to take control of the throne in the first movie and he had attempted to rule from another throne in The Avengers, those two claims are inaccurate).

And in TDW they don't address Loki's arc as they should have but they showed him teaming up with Thor, protecting Jane and saving his brother's life by sacrificing his. Loki is not a villain in this movie either.

And speaking of TDW, another point I disagree with is they say Loki gives up on his heritage to appease Frigga when she asks him “am I, then, not your mother,” to which Loki responds, “no”. I never saw it that way, personally. I always thought that "no" was a cheeky answer in that "no, you're not my mother, you're an illusion". That's what Frigga responds to afterwards "always so perceptive", she's alluding to that. Also, that "illusion" part might be literal but could also be a way of Loki to say she's not his real mother even though he'd want her to be, that it was too good to be true, that he's not worthy of her. But I never saw it as Loki giving up his heritage at all.

Of course I don't doubt that what the author says about adoption is true and the repercussions of being taken from your bio family might have on some people, I don't have enough knowledge on the matter to talk about that so I'm sure they're right.

#Loki

[our-hextech-dream]

i'd like to chime in on the viktor post, since it also became a bit of a viktor analysis: one thing that sort of came to my attention re: LoL vs Arcane is that in LoL, i think he's a fun antagonist. but when i watched arcane, i didn't know anything about LoL viktor. i absolutely adored his arc in Arcane; i felt like he wasn't reduced to his disability, he was extremely competent,and while he was definitely hindered by his disability, it wasn’t, like. This horrible, terrible burden he 1/?

suffered from and longed to be free of. He was an intelligent and brilliant inventor, and he also needed to use a cane. and i think that even though he made a mistake with the hexcore, it felt very much like jayce's actions killing a child. in the way that their actions, while they were mistakes, did not make them villains. they were still heroic, even if they made mistakes, because they were humbled due to their hubris and chose to learn from it. which i ADORE. but after reading up LoL lore i'm side-eyeing season two. so far the writing for the characters has been incredibly nuanced and satisfying for me, so i’m not SUPER worried, but i’m hoping that they don’t take viktor to quite the extremes of LoL viktor. I don’t know all of LoL’s lore, but as far as i can tell, Viktor didn’t have the same disabilities Arcane Viktor does -- and i’m a bit wary that they might turn him into a villain on the level of silco. Still nuanced, but certainly not very heroic. And disabled people so rarely get to be heroes! By all means, Viktor creating assistance devices using Hextech until he’s able to basically achieve the same physical feats as able bodied people would be great; but i also don’t want it to be like ‘look he’s cured now ayyy!’ i really hope that instead of that, he and jayce become more like ‘heroes on opposite sides’. LoL Viktor does have some of that nuance (like trying to save the catatonic people with the crystal), but i want that even moreso in Arcane.

i think if the discussion with @hexhomos taught me anything it's that LoL viktor can be a really subtle and multifaceted character! he can also be a mustache twirling villain in some of the 'side' league stories, but given my own comics fandom background i'm perfectly happy viewing that kind of stuff as sort of... dubiously canon. canon when i want it to be to make a point, noncanon when its annoying or breaks my interpretation of a character, lmao.

on the one hand, i wouldn't worry too much (which you said you haven't been) because the writers have done great so far and i don't see any reason that would suddenly change. on the other, arcane was created to tell the story of vi and jinx - everyone else is an afterthought, added because it makes sense for them to be there and they can add to the story, but they're not the focal points. so i can definitely see a portion of fans being disappointed because they feel like viktor didn't get the narrative focus they feel he would have needed to make his turn believable, and this is gonna be the loud portion of 'viktor ooc' fans, if i had to make an educated guess.

(i know i keep bringing up loki in the tags but i'm. so serious. treat the mcu fandom as a case study for this because i have been watching the exact same arguments play out again in real time. 'avengers loki didn't have a believable enough reason to become a villain therefore he's ooc' because we didn't get to see him explicitly tortured by thanos - it was implied, though. they spent exactly as much time on it as was necessary to give us the information we needed without taking the focus away from the actual main characters! i see arcane doing something similar with viktor and the hexcore. the writers are trusting us to be smart enough to pick up on the cues.)

re: his disabilities - we all need to be aware that empowering for me is not necessarily empowering for thee. there are going to be people who disagree with viktor's outcome no matter how arcane chooses to portray it or what they end up doing with his physical disabilities. cure him, don't cure him, lose the focus on his disabilities altogether, continue to focus on them even after his turn, let him keep his humanity, let him go full hal 9000; either way there are going to be people with perfectly valid points who will think they should have done the opposite. i hope that people can come to terms with all possible outcomes before s2 comes out, get cool with the idea that their ideal viktor may not be the one that arcane wants or needs. no matter what we may feel would be 'realistic', we have to keep in mind that he's a fictional character with a role to play in a story, and they're gonna make him play that part no matter how they have to get him there.

#arcane #viktor #hextext #saccharineomens #i don't have an answer tag lmao #also hello *waves in sharing a server* you could have just @me on discord LMAO but i appreciate the ask! #gives me a chance to get my thoughts out w/out other ppl chiming in first

[avengershumanresources]

blood 1 - Strange/Stark!Reader

Relationship: Dr. Strange/Princess!Stark!Reader

Rating: M

Warnings: Adult Themes, eventual smut (like, wayyy down the line), adult language, implied sexual violence, general violence

Synopsis: Reader is the daughter of the legendary King Anthony Stark, Uniter of Lands, The Iron Defender, and leader of the realm. When the king disappears during battle, hope is lost and he is presumed dead.

When the late king’s uncle, Obadiah, takes the throne until your brother Peter is of age, he quickly arranges a marriage for you with a wicked king in a neighboring kingdom.

With the realms politics in question, and rumors of an upcoming siege to overthrow Peter’s rule before it starts, you quickly learn who is loyal to the crown and who is not.

Masterlist 

Chapter Playlist

1 - an empty grave

Cast:

The Royal House Stark:

King Obadiah Stark (Obadiah Stane)

King Anthony Stark (presumed dead)

Queen Virginia Stark (Pepper)

The Late Queen Alexandra Stark (your mother)

Princess Stark!Reader- you

Prince Peter Stark (Peter Parker)

Princess Morgan Stark

Knights:

Sir Samuel Wilson

Sir Steven Rogers

Sir Clinton Barton

Spellcasters/Master Sorcerers/Sorceresses:

Stephen Strange

Wanda Maximoff

Master Wong

Loyal to House Stark:

Natalia Romanoff (Natasha)- Assassin

James Barnes- her partner

Prince Thor- of Asgard, United with Stark’s kingdom

Prince Loki- of Asgard

Lady Brunhilde- of Asgard

Lady Sif- of Asgard

King T’Challa- of Wakanda

Princess Shuri- of Wakanda

(---) 

In a final twist of irony, the day of the funeral was bright and warm. 

You’d stood quietly while the priest recited his words, while candles were lit, while the Queen trembled silently next to you. You held Morgan’s hand, you listened while the choir sang, the ominous sound reverberating through your chest. 

The mourners in black whispered while the royal family walked up to an empty coffin. You touched the polished wood, fist tightening at your side. Pepper bowed her head, reciting a quiet prayer. 

How stupid. All of this was stupid. Praying to an empty box, crying over nothing. 

You kept your eyes down, lest you betray your own thoughts. Now wasn’t the time for rebellion. Not when your queen step-mother was relying so heavily on tradition and ritual to get through the day. It’d be borderline cruel to start antagonizing her in this way. 

No, you’d wait. 

Peter, your half-brother in blood but full brother in heart, touched your elbow, pulling you from your thoughts, and guiding you away from the coffin. He kept his eyes forward, expression stoic while he lead the family back to their positions in the massive cathedral. 

“They’ll pay for this,” he murmured low into your ear, as if reading your mind. The words were laced with a malice you’d never heard from the normally cheerful prince. 

You didn’t reply, instead you grabbed your younger brother’s hand and gave it a tight squeeze. A silent agreement. 

The attack had been a betrayal of one of the kingdom’s oldest allies, a neighboring kingdom ruled by someone your father had once trusted with his life. 

Apparently nothing was sacred anymore. 

The funeral ended somberly, mourners murmuring amongst each other, ladies fawning over Pepper, though the queen looked none too pleased with the attention. 

You searched the crowd for a pair of familiar of blue eyes, finding their owner tucked away from the crowd in a secluded corner. He was speaking quietly to the sorceress, Wanda, his eyes flicking up to meet your gaze. With a small nod, he signaled you over.

Weaving through the mass of people, you slipped into the conversation with Wanda regarding you, frowning in sympathy.

“I’m so sorry, your highness,” she whispered, bowing her head. “Your father was a good man, and an honest king. The realm is less for this loss.”

“Thank you,” your tone was colder than you’d intended, a reflection of the bitterness taking form within. Clearing your throat, you tried again, softer and more agreeable this time. “He truly was the best of us.”

Stephen sent Wanda a quick glance and the sorceress excused herself, parting the hall in a hurry.

“You’re angry,” he noted quietly. 

“Am I?” you hummed, quirking a brow up at your friend. “I thought I was supposed to be sad?”

“You’re allowed to be angry,” he replied, folding his hands behind his back. “It just means you understand the injustice of it all.”

“Peter wants revenge,” you stated, mimicking his motion and staring out at the sea of royals and court members. 

“Understandable,” he murmured. “I imagine a number of officials feel similarly.”

“He isn’t old enough to take the throne,” you supplied. “We can’t go to war without a seated leader.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time an heir succeeded in an unorthodox manner,” he noted before turning his head to look at you. “How are you, truly?”

You opened your mouth to reply, words catching in your throat. You felt hollow. You felt like you wanted to scream until you woke up from whatever nightmare you were caught in. Your heart felt like it had been ripped from your chest and stomped on. 

“I’m not certain,” you finally confessed, hands straining against each other behind your back. “Part of me wants to ride through the night and kill that traitor. The other wants to curl on the ground and fill the empty grave myself.”

He nodded in understanding.

“Grief is a powerful thing,” he replied softly, scanning the room before turning and giving you his full attention . “Would you like hide in the observatory a while?”

You looked up to him in surprise. The room was still full of mourners, citizens, and members of the court. Your duty would be to talk to everyone as they passed, pulling the burden off of Pepper.

“Can we?” you asked, voice cracking at the thought of having to converse any further.

Stephen gave you a mischievous smirk, nudging you toward a side door of the church. You followed his lead, slipping out of sight and tucking yourselves away from the crowds inside a small alcove. 

“They’ll want to focus on Peter and the queen anyway,” he noted casually, drawing up a portal with his fingers. “No point in dwelling. I’ll tell anyone who asks that you fainted from the stress and required immediate medical attention.”

“I’m sure they’ll all believe it,” you retorted with a matching grin, taking his hand and letting him help you through the portal with all of your heavy mourning apparel. 

The observatory had been a new addition to the palace after Stephen had arrived as its master sorcerer. Before, it’d been an abandoned archer’s tower, last used by the late king’s father, Howard, as a means of defense against the previously antagonistic kingdoms. 

After King Anthony had taken the throne and negotiated trade and peace treaties with the nearby kings, the reinforcements had largely been forgotten. 

Stephen had suggested it as an ideal place to study the cosmos above, and after some urging on your part, your father agreed to let the two of you repair the small space. When the foundation had been fixed to his specifications, Stephen added another enchantment to increase the size internally.

From there, the two of you worked to fill the space with objects of learning and interest. 

The walls had been lined with stacks of books, maps of the universe, and healing runes. Tables had been set with with all sorts of alchemical experiments, glowing amulets, and charmed quills. A small greenhouse had been established on one of the many turret balconies, where you helped tend to some medicinal herbs and enchanted florals. 

It was a place of peace and knowledge in a world of chaos and ignorance and in it, Stephen had taken the time to teach you the secrets of the universe. It was one of the few places you knew you truly could belong without judgement. 

“I’m not convinced this isn’t sabotage,” he stated once you were alone, the glowing orange portal snapping shut behind him. 

“What makes you say that?” you asked, lifting a book, flipping through a few pages in an attempt to distract yourself from his blunt words. You agreed there was some kind of malice involved in the attack, but sabotage suggested someone within the kingdom had betrayed your father. For such as honest and good your father was, your heart couldn’t handle such a reality.

“Whispers in the village,” he answered tersely. “Wanda was giving me her report when you approached. She is traveling to the next village over as we speak.”

“Rumlow betrayed his alliance,” you replied bitterly, refusing to look up from your book, though you couldn’t tell what the thing was about. Plants? Chaos magic? “What more is there to discover?”

“Why did he do it?” he asked. “What motivation does he have to sever one of the strongest military alliances in history?” 

“Greed? We’ve had a surprise in economic activity since the scholar agreement with Wakanda,” you guessed with a shrug. “This isn’t a smart man we’re dealing with. I’m met him once before. He’s ambitious and motivated, but not particularly clever.”

“Peter is almost of age, your father has prepared him for his new role thoroughly,” he continued, pacing the space. “It doesn’t make sense. Everyone is well aware he will be of age to take the throne in six months time, and now this just ensures his placement.”

“Not everything does,” you reminded him. “You taught me that. Or don’t you remember?”

You paused after a moment, peeking up from the book after letting his words settle.

“Maybe he plans to use Peter’s inexperience against him?” you suggested quietly. It wasn’t a pleasant thought, but even with the training and learning, Peter was a different person than your father, perhaps not in morals but certainly in other areas like strategy and planning. 

“I intend to get to the bottom of this,” he stated, his hand tightening at his side. You’d never seen Stephen so inflamed before. “At the very least, I can try to retrieve his body. Negotiate a dignified exchange.”

The words pierced your heart far more painfully than you’d anticipated, your hand gave a jerk and you dropped the book you’d been fidgeting with while he spoke. 

The mental image of your fathers head on a pike outside of Rumlow’s keep was enough to make you nauseous. 

“I’m sorry,” Stephen’s tone shifted at your reaction. “I’m getting ahead of myself.”

“Don’t apologize,” you assured him, clearing your throat and composing yourself. “You’re just doing your job. It’s why he trusted you to the position. You’re asking the questions that need to be asked.”

He watched you pluck the book off the ground and toss it on a nearby table with a low sigh. This was a precarious position he found himself in. 

On the one hand, he’d been appointed as the Master Sorcerer of this castle and this realm. He had an obligation to serve that role and ensure the safety of the kingdom’s inhabitants. Not to mention, his obligation as a peacekeeper in his position as Sorcerer Supreme at Kamar-Taj.

On the other, you were his dearest friend and companion, and the obvious hurt you were suffering made his other duties nearly impossible to focus on. It was no wonder Kamar-Taj frowned on intimate attachments, they did provide a distraction from the ambivalent roles sorcerers and sorceresses were bound to play. 

He wanted to serve as an unbiased judge in this troubling time, but his heart wanted him to seek justice and bring peace to your troubled mind. 

His eyes drifted to the telescope at the edge of the room and an idea hit him.

Perhaps a distraction was best for the time being? A small respite to pull away from the doom and gloom of the immediate future.

“Do you remember that star cluster I showed you last week?” he asked, hooking and arm over your shoulder and guiding you toward the window. “There’s a fascinating change that’s been occurring.”

It was still relatively bright out, though with the sun was just starting to dip over the horizon, there was enough darkness to point out the phenomena he’d discovered the night before. 

“Let me adjust-,” he tinkered with the measurements before signaling for you to lean in. “Do you see it?” 

“They’re changing color,” you noted with a small gasp of excitement. “That’s a promising omen, isn’t it?” 

Your expression had brightened considerably when you looked up at him. 

“It is,” he nodded. “The specific colors suggest a period of tranquility and prosperity after a short struggle.”

“Then maybe it isn’t all terrible,” you tried voicing optimistically. It sounded strange, like you still weren’t entirely convinced, but the evidence was clear before you. 

Stephen knew the stars never lied and had taught you as much over the time you’d spent together. 

You sighed sadly, giving the stars another peek and shaking your head when you pulled away. 

“I miss him,” you murmured, looking up at Stephen miserably. 

The sorcerer frowned sympathetically, before he moved toward you and pulled you into a tight embrace.

You pressed your cheek against his chest and allowed his arms to wrap around you. 

“I know,” he replied softly, resting his chin on your head. “Just know he loved you very much, and wouldn’t want to see you so hurt on his behalf."

That seemed to break something in you, and you buried your forehead into his chest, shaking with suppressed sobs and held back tears until finally you choked out a wave of emotions all at once.

He spent an hour sitting with you while you cried into his tunic, yelling about how angry you were to how miserable all of this made you feel. He listened, offering a handkerchief and when you started to calm down, summoned a fresh pot of herbal tea.

“We will find answers,” he stated, blowing gently over the steaming cup in his hand. 

“You sound so sure,” you noted with a bitter chuckle, eyes swollen and red from your tears.

“I’ve tampered with seeing the future from time to time,” he replied cheekily. “Perhaps I’ve had a vision?”

“And what did that vision show you?” you pressed, playing along with a ghost of a smile behind your own cup. 

“We win,” Stephen replied firmly, his expression falling serious.

“Doesn’t feel like it,” you confessed quietly. 

“Victory seldom does,” he watched you take a sip of your tea. You closed your eyes and relaxed your shoulders with the calming scent.

You opened your mouth to ask him a question when a knock at the observatory door broke the small spell of peace that’d fallen over the space.

“I’ve got it,” he gestured for you to stay seated, moving toward the door and slowly peeling it open. 

It wasn’t that he was overtly concerned for your safety, but given recent events, Stephen didn’t want to be lax in covering all possibilities. The world had gone mad and he wouldn’t put an assassin with a dagger outside the realm of potential visitors.

“Is the princess here?” Loki, Prince of Asgard, asked with a tone laced with annoyance upon Stephen’s appearance. 

“Loki?” you must have heard his voice and stood, setting your cup aside. “Stephen, let him in. It’s okay.”

With a glare at the prince, Stephen stepped aside and allowed the emerald clad royal through. 

He didn’t like outsiders in the observatory. Especially when you were around. 

It made him especially uneasy inviting another magic user inside, where they could potentially measure its wards and security for later aggression. 

“Peter mentioned you might be here,” Loki glanced around the room, arms folded behind his back. “I apologize if I’m intruding.”

That last part was directed toward Stephen with the smallest smirk. 

“No, it’s okay, we were just having tea,” you replied quickly, gesturing to the steaming pot on the table. “Could I make you a cup-?”

“No-,” he cut her off and cleared his throat apologetically. “I’ve come to say farewell. My father is ordering the borders to Asgard closed until Rumlow’s nation offers an explanation to this… tragedy.”

“I see,” your expression fell at the news. 

Certainly Asgard closing its borders was a worrisome sign. They were the kingdom’s greatest allies and largest trading partners. The effects of such a move would be felt for quite some time, both in security and in the local economy. 

“I’ll write,” he promised with a curt bow. “Don’t fall behind in your studies. I’ll be testing you the next time we meet.”

You smiled before he took your hand for a brief kiss on the knuckles. Rolling your eyes, you pulled away and threw your arms around his shoulder in a hug. 

“What a sad parting,” you laughed at his bewildered reaction. “And you’re going to kiss my knuckles like we haven’t known one another for years? On the day of my father’s funeral? Unacceptable.”

He barked out a small laugh, reciprocating the embrace with an arm before pulling away. 

“Stay safe,” he urged her before looking up at Stephen with a steely gaze. “Do well to keep her protected, Sorcerer.” 

“Always,” Stephen answered tersely, a little offended at the prince’s casual disregard for his abilities. He’d always kept you safe, and had absolutely no intention of letting that guard slip now. 

“Travel safely,” you called after him and he gave a final wave before pausing in the doorway when Stephen moved to close the door.

“Keep her close,” Loki warned quietly, the smirk disappearing completely. “There are whispers in the village of treachery and assassination. Do not let anyone have the opportunity to take advantage of the situation.”

“My associates are building wards around the castle and her quarters as we speak,” Stephen replied in agreement, a quick glance in your direction to ensure you weren’t listening. 

“The tea was a nice touch,” Loki noted with a hum. Stephen nodded curtly. 

The tea had a protection enchantment included in the mixture of herbs. Something small, but effective if you found yourself in danger without him, Wong, or Wanda nearby.

“Be well,” Stephen closed the door once Loki was out of sight, turning and finding you digging through his trunk of cloaks at the back of the room. “What are you doing?”

“I want to see Natalia and James,” you answered, pulling out a large blue cloak and holding it to your shoulders. 

“Absolutely not,” he crossed his arms. “Your father was just killed, possibly murdered. You’re not going to the village unprotected.”

“That’s why you’re coming,” you threw a crimson cloak in his direction, fastening the blue one over your shoulders. 

“Did you miss the part where I said murdered?” he asked in disbelief. 

“Then it’s a good think I’m friends with assassins,” you chimed back, pulling the hood of the cloak over your head. “They might be able to tell us something.”

“I’m sure Wanda and Wong have already talked to them,” he shot back, folding the cloak over is arm. “You should stay at the castle, at least for tonight.”

“You already know I’m going to go regardless,” you replied. 

“Because you’re a headstrong idiot,” he sighed, reluctantly pulling the cloak over is shoulders. “Who clearly has a death wish. What if your family comes looking for you?”

“They won’t,” you answered with a confident grin. “Mother is going to be with Morgan and Peter is going to lock himself away in the armory or training fields until the knights give up and make him retire to his chambers.”

“You’re so confident in your knowledge of the castle,” Stephen snorted, tying the cloak around him. 

“It’s what happens when you’re the eldest daughter of a king,” you replied, patting him on the shoulder. “You see everyone, but no one sees you.” 

“Poetic.”

“Also, you owe me an ale for enchanting my tea,” you quirked a brow toward him when he stammered back a response. “Didn’t think I would notice?”

“I’m losing my touch,” he sighed, waving a hand and summoning a bag of coin.

“No, you’re just turning into a fussy mother hen,” you grinned, the smile looking far more relieving than the grief he know you wore on the inside. “It’s endearing.”

Wha danger was a short outing for the evening? It was arguably safer in a crowd than alone in her chambers, especially while Wong was still working on the wards.

Besides, the assassins you’d found friendship in would do well to keep threats away as well.

And while Stephen pondered this thought, you were already part-way out of the room and headed toward one of the hidden passages in the hall. 

(---)

2 - a night at the pub

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#dr strange x reader #dr strange/reader #stephen strange x reader #stephen strange/reader #reader insert #reader fic #fanfiction #reader fanfic #Doctor Stephen Strange #dr. strange #dr. stephen strange #royalty au #Royal AU #Princess Reader #Stark!Reader #Fairtale AU #fantasy marvel au #Marvel #Marvel AU #female reader #reader #stephen strange

[itsclydebitches]

I was once more thinking of vol 8 and other works to compare it to. I hit Harry Potter, specifically Order of the Phoenix. Literally all that happened there showed a much better "proactive Hero" and "Big Bad vs Big Good" battle that it feels unfair to compare. What say you Clyde?

It's been a very long time since I read Order of the Phoenix, but putting aside that and the series' problems with representation (something that always feels like it needs to be acknowledged when discussing HP nowadays), Rowling did a good job of setting up both motivation and justification for Harry's actions. Which isn't to say that he was never wrong — quite the opposite, especially in OotP — but that Harry's involvement in this war is justified in a way that Ruby's involvement is not. He's not just generally active (no tea sipping equivalent scenes), but we understand why he's the one taking that action.

Harry is an unwilling participant forced to fight due to a prophecy, so when he stumbles along the way, we as the reader are understanding because jeez, what else what he supposed to do? Literally no one else can do this and he's trying his best. Ruby, in contrast, is not necessary to this fight. We might have gotten that with her silver eyes, but we didn't, so when Ruby willingly steps up — or, in Volume 8, forcibly takes control — and then gets upset because things didn't go well, the viewer (or at least some viewers: us) are far less forgiving because she demanded this responsibility and then found she didn't like having it. When Harry rushes off to the Department of Mysteries, endangering many of his friends in the process (even if they volunteered) we understand that this action is done out of love. We've spent five books establishing Harry's desire for a family, it's literally his greatest wish according to the Mirror of Erised, so going after Sirius, while reckless, is such an in-character, relatable, human decision. It's integral to who Harry is as a person. Compare that to the lack of work done surrounding Summer and the unanswered question of why Ruby is fighting Salem. Because it's the right thing to do? Great, fantastic, but uh... that doesn't really explain or justify why she's leading the charge when all these other huntsmen — with the same goals, more experience, better plans, etc. —are trying to do The Right Thing too. When thinking about HP vs. RWBY, my mind always goes back to that moment at the end of the first book when Harry tries to tell McGonagall about the stone and she brushes him off. "Ah," I thought later. "That's why three 11yos are going off to save the magical artifact when there are adult, full-fledged wizards around to do it instead. The kids tried to turn hand this off to the adults and the adults failed them." Now, combine this with Harry's growing tendency to go it alone, the implication that Dumbledore may have been allowing him to face certain threats to get stronger, each book's individual situation like a hidden chamber that only Harry can enter, his Godfather being on the run, a magically binding contract that keeps him in a competition because the bad guys are specifically after him... Harry is at the heart of the story. He's integral to it, his part in the fight inevitable, so all that's left is to see how he bears that burden.

Ruby is not integral to this fight, her presence and even her silver eyes are not necessary, her facing down Salem is only inevitable from a meta perspective regarding expectations for a protagonist (and then, in Volume 8, Ruby didn't face her.) There's no clear personal motivation to drive her. There's not even a Guardian's of the Galaxy-esque motivation in the form of, "We'll step up because no one else will." Others do keep stepping up and Ruby keeps forcing them to follow her instead, insisting that her way is better. Only problem is, it's arguably not and that's when she has a plan at all. It's like if instead of going after the stone because his professors won't, or going after Sirius because he loves him, or going after Voldemort because a prophecy and a life of having a saving-people-thing has pushed him to that, Harry made his way to the front of this war Just Because, rejecting everyone else who fought in the first war, has more experience, and actual plans along the way. Why does he do this? Because his name is in the title of the book, I guess.

RWBY throws in lost of classic ideas and setups, but doesn't seem to understand their point. Even something as simple as that Big Bad vs. Big Good conflict in Volume 8. Putting aside how muddied this has gotten between the Gods' involvement and Salem's dip in the grimm pool, Volume 8 took the threat of our Big Bad arriving with an army and... ignored it. Instead, they ran with Ironwood as the primary antagonist of the volume, the guy trying to stop Salem, a previously established ally, the guy who just gave up his arm to capture another clear-cut villain, and who throughout Volume 7 demonstrated none of the manipulation we would attribute to a Dumbledore-like figure. Rather than running with their Big Bad's arrival, RWBY asked how they could force one of the good guys to become a bad guy instead, hence the sudden shooting of Oscar and murder of the councilman. This is a far from perfect comparison (and I take my virtual life in my hands bringing up another controversial character lol), but it's a little like if after we learned about which side Snape was truly on, he suddenly tried to kill Hermione, succeeded in killing a minor character like Professor Flitwick, and then made plans to destroy all of Hogwarts. Meanwhile, everyone is ignoring Voldemort standing on the front lawn because the narrative randomly made Snape the biggest problem instead. So a lot of the fanbase is like, "Yeah he's absolutely a dick and his horrific past/contentious choices are the point of his character... but he's also supposed to be one of the good guys at the end of the day? And the Big Bad is right there? We can argue about how 'good' Snape is until we're blue in the face, but he's no Voldemort. Why did you feel the need to chuck the morally gray character off the deep end for our heroes to oppose when our primary antagonist is literally right here, trying to kill them?" From this, to introducing a dead mother that in no way motivates our cast, to having Oscar face down Salem with an improvised weapon instead of Ruby with her eyes, to giving Penny an arc about accepting her android body only to rip it away, etc. etc. RWBY continuously throws out ideas without understanding what they're meant to accomplish. There's a lot to criticize about Harry Potter nowadays, but a lack of logical development isn't one of them.

And just to chuck in another text — because I too think about what has done Volume 8 themes better lol — consider: Loki. Stop reading now if you don't want spoilers, but a couple episodes in Loki and Sylvie end up on a dying planet that is only evacuating the rich. That's said overtly in both the dialogue and visually in the mise-en-scene, with poor people screaming that only the rich are getting tickets for the rocket and elaborately dressed elites enjoying the comforts of that ride. Then, just as they're about to escape, leaving the rest of their world behind, a piece of the moon hits the ship, either killing them instantly or stranding them with the people they abandoned. And I thought to myself, "See, this makes sense in a way RWBY never did." Evacuation was never about wealth in RWBY, despite what the fandom continually claims. Ironwood was trying to evacuate everyone and only stopped because they all assumed Salem would be killing them momentarily. This situation included Relics and a Maiden that would easily turn the tide of the war, meaning their safety influenced the whole world, not just these people. Mantle was not necessarily about to be destroyed — indeed, we find out later that Salem had no interest in it — and it was always a bad faith (and OOC) assumption that Ironwood was leaving his kingdom for good. The story doesn't even acknowledge the huge number of Mantle citizens already on Atlas when the attack begins. I was just sitting there thinking, "This two episode mini conflict in an insane show with alligators and time shenanigans somehow holds up better than RWBY's 27 episodes that are trying to be deep. How does that happen?"

#rwde #rwby #Harry Potter #HP #mymetas

[lucianalight]

The fifth episode of Wandavision showed once again that Loki has a heart and principles. Vision's friend says that what Wanda does to him hurts him! Loki's control didn't hurt. Besides, people could make decisions. Hawkaye didn't kill Fury. Selvig built a glitch into the machine.

YES!!! Thank you for sending this because I really needed to vent about this. It absolutely blows my mind how people easily sympathize with and even defend hero coded characters no matter how villainous their actions are. The double standards first and foremost come from the narrative itself. Like the scene in which Hayward was giving information about Wanda’s past, was played in a way to convey to the audience that he is an antagonist and can’t be trusted. Nothing, absolutely nothing he said was a lie.

“The twins were subsequently radicalized, volunteering at HYDRA.”

To which Woo answered “Oversimplification of events”!!! Oversimplification?!?! That was exactly what happened! Maybe at first they volunteered for SHIELD before HYDRA was exposed in CAWS. But by the time of events of AOU they knew they were working for HYDRA. And they wanted revenge. Hayward said nothing but the truth. Actually he summarized the events. Let’s not forget that Ultron was created because she messed with Tony’s mind, someone who has PTSD. She forced Avengers to live their worst fears. She unleashed HULK on a town full of innocent civilians. And after she realized Ultron’s plan was to destroy the whole planet, and only then, she let her murderous revenge plan go.

I was doubtful of Wanda doing the mind control  @silver-lioning , but now it is confirmed she’s doing it. She might not have complete control but she’s inside people’s heads. Her mind control hurts people and they’re terrified. Monica describes it as excruciating, terrifying violation. Compare it to Clint’s description of Loki’s mind control: “Have you ever had someone take your brain and play? Pull you out and send something else in? Do you know what it's like to be unmade?”. It was still a violation and we know how it affected Selvig too. but it didn’t hurt them. And we know from Loki’s reaction to its effects, that the mind control through the scepter could hurt people if he chose to. The way The Other hurt Loki through the hold and influence the scepter had on him. We also know that Loki is fully capable of hurting people through mind magic(using Valkyrie’s worst memory against her), but he didn’t do it. Despite being under the influence of mind stone. And as you mentioned people could still make some decisions coming from their real personality. Wanda has completely changed their personalities too.

Let’s not forget all of her decisions was made out of her own free will. She was never under duress or threat of torture. While in Avengers Loki’s mind was also under the influence of mind stone, and he was under duress and threat of torture.

On top of all that, Wanda is going against Vision’s will and wishes. Monica defense of her that she at least put up a quarantine was so lame. Like they should be thankful that she hold thousands of people hostage not millions or the whole world?!?!

It’s understandable that she went through so much grief and can not handle it. That doesn’t make any of her actions right and defensible though. Like we know that Loki had an understandable mental breakdown, that doesn’t make his attempted genocide defensible.

This is not an anti Wanda post. I’m just so frustrated by the hypocrisy of the narrative. If the actions Wanda did in Wandavision, was done by Loki, or by any villain coded character, it wouldn’t be treated sympathetic, not by the narrative and nor by the audience. But because she is hero coded, not only it is treated by sympathy, they’re trying to find excuses for her and for her past wrong doings.

#how do i tag this #spot the hypocrisy #heroes and villains #loki #wanda maximoff #wandavision #aou #Anonymous #messages

[twh-news]

How Loki's big finale reveal failed Marvel fans | Digital Spy

Loki finale spoilers follow.

Marvel used to have a major villain problem. Throughout Phases One and Two, Earth's Mightiest Heroes fought cookie-cutter bad guys who just wanted to get rich or take over the world. Loki and Bucky were the only exceptions to this because of their personal connections to Thor and Cap.

Phase Three began to build on this idea with fan favourites like Ragnarok's Hela and Black Panther’s Erik Killmonger. Both of them committed terrible acts, sure, but their plights were also understandable to some degree, and even relatable.

With the advent of Marvel TV on Disney+, Phase Four has developed this approach even further by putting anti-heroes front and centre in each of their own shows. Even Wanda, a full-fledged Avenger, is forced to reckon with her own morality in light of what she did to Westview. And that's been integral to the success of these shows, which each unpack what it means to be a hero in ways that no other Marvel project has ever attempted on screen.

But by centring the so-called "antagonists" like this, a different kind of villain problem has risen, like a seemingly dead baddie who thrusts one hand up from the grave just as the credits start to roll.

Since Loki's very first episode, there's been endless speculation on who the Big Bad might be. The mysterious Loki variant who showed up to kill TVA soldiers was perhaps the most likely candidate at first, but things took a surprising twist with that Lady Loki reveal (although given that betrayal at the end, Sylvie certainly did make a good case for her being the show's true Big Bad).

And then of course, other villainous candidates soon raised their heads. Everyone from Ravonna and the Time Keeepers to Alioth and President Loki all played a "bad" role to some degree. Loki's willingness to tackle the greyer areas of morality has been a strength of this show. But throughout the first five episodes, there was always this idea that someone else, someone "bigger" was waiting in the wings, controlling the TVA from a distance.

The penultimate episode leaned heavily into this idea with a final shot that practically begged fans to speculate about who could be hiding away in that castle beyond time. And then the finale arrived with the big reveal of He Who Remains, "a ruler" and "a conqueror" who also refers to himself as a "jerk" of sorts.

If you're not a fan of weighty exposition, you might consider him to be a jerk as well. Jonathan Majors does everything he can to sell these scenes, but when you break it all down, the vast majority of this final episode was dedicated to explaining an entirely new character whose arrival made little or no sense to casual fans watching back home.

On the flip side of that, He Who Remains was always the number one suspect for comic book readers who know their history. Kang, as this character is called in the source material, has been hinted at throughout the series, and Marvel even announced Jonathan's casting in the role months before Loki even started.

For some, Kang was the obvious choice for this reveal, which makes it a bit less exciting because it's so predictable. And then for others, it was the complete opposite problem. If you don't read the source material, then Kang's arrival came completely out of nowhere because his character wasn't even mentioned prior to the finale. Without comic book knowledge of Kang's identity, this just doesn't work as a satisfying end.

And even if you do know exactly who Majors is playing, what is there to actually gain from a random character showing up like this last minute? Loki has no emotional attachment to Kang beyond his manipulation of the TVA, and as a result of this, there's no closure. Thematically, another Loki variant would have made for a far more satisfying villain, one who forces "our" Loki to confront himself and his notions of what it means to be good.

Logistically, Kang's debut here isn't ideal either given that it required hefty amounts of exposition which slowed the finale to a crawl. While it was refreshing to see Loki avoid the usual CGI spectacle that often plagues the end of these stories, Marvel's incessant need to focus on set-up dragged things down in a different way here, forcing Kang in at the expense of the story that's currently being told.

It's thrilling to think about how this new multiverse will impact the MCU moving forward. The possibilities are literally endless, and we tried our best to outline some of the biggest ramifications to this big reveal right here. But what about the here and now? What about Loki's arc in this season and what about the viewers who couldn't care less about the wider MCU?

The ways in which this franchise connects everything together (much like the comics it's based on) is easily one of Marvel's biggest strengths, to the point where rival studios have desperately tried to replicate this format. But when vital plot points are introduced purely as a nod and a wink to fans who constantly look forward to what lies ahead, then this connectivity also becomes one of the studio's biggest weaknesses.

For decades, comic book giants like Marvel and DC have rebooted themselves and wiped the slate clean over and over again because they eventually become too inaccessible, weighed down by the sheer volume of backstory that newbies are forced to wade through. Marvel Studios has managed to circumvent this problem for the most part due to its widespread popularity, but sooner or later, people who don't have time to watch every single movie and show will start to resent stories like this that don't end to at least some degree.

Clearly, what was once a villain problem has become symptomatic of a much larger issue. But the essence is still the same. Characterisation is still being overlooked just to move the story along in whatever way Marvel sees fit.

And if this fixation on setting up the next project continues to take precedence over character and story, then shows like Loki run the risk of existing solely to continue one ongoing saga, like a snake eating itself in an endless loop.

Of course, fan expectation does play a role in this too, but when Kang said "We're all villains here," it's hard not to think that he might be referring to something far bigger and even more powerful than himself.

#loki #loki series #loki spoilers #spoilers #loki series spoilers #article #digital spy #marvel #MCU

[anzcty]

Analysing Episode 6 Sylvie - her actions, her choice and a whole bunch of theories (Spoilers!)

After watching the Loki finale, I have been scrolling through Tumblr for quite a long time. I already knew that people's opinions were gonna be incredibly different but I definitely did not expect this much negative backlash. Especially when it comes to two specific topics - the Sylvie and Loki kiss and Sylvie's betrayal (/choice/actions). I'm gonna be talking about the latter, for it is another time I'll talk a lot about Sylki's relationship. (Beware that this post is also really long though)

First of all, everyone has different opinions and I respect that. I absolutely adore movies, books, TV-shows and videogames because despite what's happening within the story, each viewer has the opportunity to see something else in what they are shown (besides the obvious canon). What I mean is that everyone interprets certain scenes differently and gains the opportunity to make up theories. Therefore I want to clarify that I do, by no means, want to force my views upon others. It's nice to see people talk about the Loki Series (as long as it doesn't get too negative and hateful, iykwim) because every viewer can share their specific experiences with it :)

I'm gonna analyse Sylvie's character a bit ( because, well, I'm bored and I kinda wanna protect my beloved character that I've only had for a few weeks >:^0 AND the only thing I could think about the past day was this episode) and try to explain her actions in the finale (keep in mind: not justifying them, but explaining them).

I'm terribly bad at concentrating on one single topic point so I kinda made a 'list' with questions and whatnot that I wanted to dive deeper into. Your thoughts are also more than welcome!

I already want to apologise for grammatical mistakes, for I am not a native english speaker.

Sylvie's reason for being taken away by the TVA is still kinda unknown

You know, I've heard quite a few theories about Sylvie's nexus event by now. Some people say that she got taken away because she was playing with her toys in a way that indicates her having a good heart (playing as a Valkyrie and wanting to save someone, another hint may also be the reaction she showed towards someone else who got kidnapped by the TVA, yelling at the soldiers to "help them out"). Another theory is that she already knew she was adopted, unlike Loki who found out way later than her. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but we never got to hear the actual reason why Sylvie got kidnapped. Even Renslayer didn't say a word about it.

Now I'm gonna come up with yet another theory. What if Sylvie didn't really have a nexus event in the first place how we know it? In the final episode, Kang has said that he has planned out everything beforehand so both Loki and Sylvie would end up right in front of him. Did Kang's plan also possibly involve him getting killed by Sylvie? Hear me out: We don't actually know if the Kang we saw in episode 6 is the actual 'nice' Kang and not one of his evil variants. He has already talked about 'reincarnation', so who says that after ending the first universial war, Kang didn't reincarnate into someone with an unpure heart (aka, one of his evil variants)? That'd mean that the real Kang would have been killed and the Kang we've seen in the finale is actually an evil version that simply lied to both Loki and Sylvie. Besides that, we also don't know if Kang actually had that 'point' where he didn't know what would happen next. The show revolves a whole lot around trust, not only regarding the characters, but also the viewers. Who's to say that Kang said the truth? Maybe he planned it all out: He created the TVA, let Sylvie get kidnapped and therefore give her a reason to hunt after Kang, who in return could reincarnate if he got killed OR get killed and therefore give his other variants a possibility to conquer the universes yet again. Don't you think that it was kinda suspicious that Sylvie escaped so easily out of Renslayer's hands? The one person who's probably closest to Kang? (Even though, yes, she doesn't know who he is but Renslayer seems to play a very important role in his plan). What if the Kang we saw was the nice Kang though? Would he plan everything up to a point where another universial war would break out because he might know that there is indeed something/someone out there who could end it and therefore, possibly end Kang as a whole or create a new kind of system revolving around the universe? And therefore, get rid of the possibility of another universial war happening? Who knows. I am definitely overthinking and reaching at this point. One more thing that stood out to me while thinking about the episode again today (which kinda weighs more into my theory of Sylvie being a keypoint (or rather a puppet) in this plan): Kang has talked about his Tempad and that he knew that he would need it to have enough energy. But for what? Yes, his initial idea was to give it to Loki and Sylvie to rule over the TVA, but what if it was supposed to be used for another reason? Sylvie used it to transport Loki back to the TVA (though I kinda think he was accidentally transported to another timeline, hence the reactions of both Mobius and Hunter B-15) and therefore get rid of the only thing that could prevent Sylvie from killing Kang. The Tempad was used to secure Sylvie's path and therefore eradicated Kang's only option of safety. You can see the Tempad loosing it's glow after Kang was killed, possibly due to Kang himself being the origin of it's energy. But maybe, it only had enough energy for one specific action: getting rid of Kang's protection. I do think that Sylvie is now stuck at this place and somehow has to find a way back to Loki's reality. The Tempad clearly doesn't work anymore (at least in my opinion) and there was quite a long shot showing the Tempad up close, which is kinda suspicious tbh. Also, something regarding Sylvie's unanswered nexus event feels kinda odd to me, too.

My theory in conclusion: Sylvie (and Loki) are unconciously helping Kang with his plan (a big, big, BIG plan). They're his puppets, especially Sylvie, because she's the one who created the Multiverse to begin with. Think about Loki, who was said to be manipulated by Thanos in Avengers? It's basically the same train of thoughts.

Sylvie does not take Kang's offer into consideration

To be honest, this was something to be absolutely expected of her. Sylvie was kidnapped as a child, taken away from her home and family, and had to grow up in countless apocalypses where she could never form a real bond with anybody because she knew that those people were all going to die anyway. (Please don't judge me if I got that wrong, maybe I understood the next thing wrong? Idk, if so, I'm very sorry) She revealed that she was kidnapped way before Loki was even born (something I have to think about, too, because, if Loki is the actual Loki the other variants are based off, why did he exist after Sylvie? Wouldn't that make him a variant of Sylvie instead? Idk timelines and parallel universes are hard to understand for me :') I'm kinda stoopid ), therefore she must've had spent several decades of her life running away. She had no life at all. Her only goal was to bring down the TVA and whoever is behind it, driven by pure rage, seeking out revenge for stealing her life and basically forbidding her existence. And now that she has found said person, the only thing that'd be right for her character would be to go for the kill. As immoral as it may sound, it is the only thing that makes sense. And I am actually very happy that Sylvie's goals didn't change besides the fact that she did indeed soften up a little and has gotten someone really close to her. In contrary, it makes sense for Loki to do the exact opposite. His goals have changed. He does not act the way he did in Thor or Avengers anymore. He has found another goal for himself: to make Sylvie feel alright. He has had immense character growth and didn't take a chance to change his goals back in the Thor movies or in Avengers, (....maybe later in Thor: Ragnarok, kinda). This is exactly what I think might happen to Sylvie, too. She is at the beginning of her character arc. She doesn't take the chance to change her goal, but goes for her original goal instead. Said goal does not really have positive consequences (though, maybe it might have some? We're about to find out), which results in a so called 'negative character development', which Loki has already gone through. I think that Sylvie is gonna grow as a character in season 2 and get a positive character development in addition, just like Loki did. I highly doubt that she's gonna become the antagonist, it does not make sense at this point.

Why does she not take Kang's offer (besides her very obvious intention ofc)? That leads straight (or not so straight, pun intended) to the next thing I wanna talk about. Sylvie's distrust in everything and everyone. Besides not wanting to let other people go through what she has been gone through and wanting to let people have a free will, she also does not trust Kang with his offer of 'ruling' the timeline. And it might be because she also does not trust the one she'd be ruling with: Loki.

Why does Sylvie not trust Loki?

I don't even have a specific answer to that, except that Sylvie has an incredibly thick wall built up around her. Loki has always been portrayed as the one you should not trust because he's known for backstabbing people. Loki could have thought the same about Sylvie, but he didn't. Due to his character arc, he himself has learned to trust other people and tries to redeem himself with making himself a person others can trust (He may project that onto Sylvie, meaning that he puts his trust into a Loki variant and therefore in himself, too). You can connect that fact with both Sylvie and Mobius. They're both people who are incredibly important to Loki. He wants them to trust him. He openly told Sylvie about his mistakes and tells her that he's not that person anymore. Sylvie on the other hand does not trust that easily and is - in my opinion - a very important key regarding Loki's character development. It is incredibly hard for Sylvie to trust others (probably due to her trauma) and it therefore creates a very difficult situation for Loki, where he has to 'prove' himself as trustworthy. It's basically about 'trusting yourself' if you put it that way. It's something Loki has to learn about himself: not betraying the trust of others. Sylvie might have to learn something like this, too: learning to trust someone else. It's kinda like a two sided coin - one side is about putting trust in others, whereas the other is about gaining trust from others (and what you do with it). (Good) Relationships in general are always based off trust and honesty. So in order for them to be able to have healthy relationships with others and themselves, they have to learn about trust within themselves (I hope you understand my point, I got carried away, sorry). Loki started to trust Sylvie very easily (maybe because of love? Maybe because of something else? There are still a lot of unanswered questions) whereas Sylvie doesn't trust Loki very easily. Sylvie's character arc might (hopefully) carry on with this topic in the next season.

Was that kiss initiated due to emotional or practical reasons?

Kinda both, somehow. I do think that Sylvie used the kiss to her advantage but you can also clearly see how moved she is while hearing Loki's words. Facial expressions are insanely important when it comes to acting and both Tom and Sophia delivered perfectly. You might've already heard of the quote "The eyes tell more than words could ever say". Look at Sylvie's face when Loki tells her that he wants her to be okay. She is teary eyed, sighs even. She is indeed touched by his words and I strongly think that Sylvie also has non-platonic feelings for Loki, despite barely showing anything.

Here's a snippet out of an interview with Sophia:

(Source)

Both Sylvie and Loki are said to be people who can not trust others. They both have a vulnerable side though. Loki clearly showed that several times when with Sylvie (singing to her, the blanket scene, the comfort scene in the room of the timekeepers, the confession of wanting her to be okay) and is also shown incredibly vulnerable at the end of episode 6: there are several shots showing him, crying. Sure, we have already seen Loki cry a few times beforehand but this time, it's different. He cries because the one person he is the most vulnerable with doesn't trust him, and that does hurt like hell. By the way, if you look at the close-up shot of Sylvie after she yeeted Loki back into the TVA, you can see pain in her eyes, too. But that pain quickly shifts into rage and determination. Something that I have to admit was incredibly well executed by Sophia and the people who directed this shot. Sylvie does show her vulnerable side for a brief moment before putting up her walls again and reaching for her goal.

In conclusion: I think Sylvie initiated the kiss as an emotional response to Loki's words but also used it to distract him to be able to kick him back into the TVA at the same time. Keep in mind that it was because he was in her way of fullfilling her goal. She didn't want to kill or hurt him, so she sent him away instead. So, yes, I think the kiss had both emotional and practical intentions.

Did Sylvie betray Loki?

Even though it really felt like she betrayed him, she didn't. Let me tell you why:

Loki knew exactly what Sylvie was gonna do after reaching the person behind the TVA. Loki supported her all the way up until Kang suggested a deal to them, that's where Loki's and Sylvie's paths divided. Loki is a very smart character, he outsmarts a lot of Marvel characters and therefore I think it's very in character for him to consider one part of the deal and outweigh the pros and cons. Not because he wants the throne, no, but because he wants Sylvie to be okay. A universial war could lead to countless casualties - possibly those people close around him, so of course he would want to keep her safe through that decision. Making them both rulers over the TVA and the sacred timeline would probably guarantee a strong protection from several threats. Also, maybe he thought about the possibility of Sylvie regretting her decision (which she clearly did in the end) and wanted to protect her from even more emotional pain. But as we know, Sylvie's intention has always been laid out in front of her and it didn't change. Loki knew what choice she was going to make and merely tried to change her way - without being successfull.

I don't really know what to think about this scene though. To me, it doesn't meet the requirements of a 'betrayal' but at the same time it does feel like one. It's very difficult to explain :'D

Also, I've seen some people asking themselves how or if Loki will ever be able to forgive Sylvie for making her decision. Let me assure you one thing: he will forgive her. He has said it himself: "I know what you're feeling, I know what you're going through". He has been at Sylvie's point, too. Not only once, but several times already. He seems to have learned from his mistakes, Sylvie has yet to do so. ("I betrayed everyone I've ever loved" is a line to keep in mind now, too. Maybe it could even be projected onto Sylvie this time, because Loki is indeed very dear to her) If there's someone out there who can empathise with Sylvie the most, it is Loki.

Why would Sylvie straight up cause another Universial War?

As I already said. Sylvie's arc is a negative character arc. It does not end well and causes a lot of chaos. Think about Peter Quill in Infinity War and his rage moment on Titan. They could have had the infinity gauntlet way before but Peter got emotional (understandable) and therefore destroyed the chance of an early good ending. The same happened with Sylvie. Her decision was mostly emotional, but also practical on the other hand (giving people free will and freedom). She will face the consequences and I'm pretty sure she's gonna redeem herself and tries to help fix the big mess she has caused.

Sylvie's breakdown

Another scene that was absolutely brilliant was the scene after Sylvie has killed Kang. She backs off slowly and then slumps to the ground, breathing heavily (now that I think about it, I think she even started to cry). She has waited for this moment her whole life, but now that it's done, it kinda feels like she didn't exactly get what she needed. Hunter B-15 has already mentioned it before that Sylvie needs to hunt the person behind the TVA down, unlike Renslayer, who only wants to find out who it really is. Although Sylvie might have recognized that this wasn't everything she needed at this point. We already got to know that she didn't have a clue what to do after she's done with the TVA. She didn't have a goal beyond that. And now that she has reached the point where she is clueless, she might have recognized what she really needed beyond finishing her goal: friends, a life, literally anything that doesn't make her feel alone. And she literally just kicked that one thing away from her. Loki, the one person who has been closest to her and gave her the feeling of not being alone anymore, the feeling of having a friend (or someone more than a friend), has been pushed away by herself. I think that in this exact moment where she sinks to the ground she recognizes that not trusting Loki was a mistake this time and that revenge isn't enough to satisfy her forever.

But maybe that one thing that will satisfy her for a long time is something she's returning back to in season 2. I am so excited to see her again and find out more about Sylvie's character!

Thank you so much for reading this! If you want to add something to this list or correct something or anything, feel free to do so. I'd love to hear your thoughts on Sylvie's character in the finale and what you think might happen with her in season 2 :) see y'all, stay safe and have a nice day/night!

#sylvie laufeydottir #loki series #sylki

[princessfbi]

Ok I have got to know what happened with Oliver's character on that one show that makes you rage so hard every time you see him.

WELL NONNIE I'LL TELL YOU!

This is a warning for spoilers if anyone wants to watch this show because my rage cannot be contained.

OK SO...

This show is called Into the Badlands and Oliver's character is named Ryder. Basically the premise of this world is that it's kind of post apocalyptic/alternative universe where humanity got so caught up in trying to one up each other that it sort of imploded and now you have this society where either you're super wealthy (the Barrons), super poor (Cogs and Nomads), or somehow a ninja (The Clippers and whatever the hell MK was supposed to be). ANYWAYS....

Ryder is the son of Barron Quinn. Now the surviving land is either divided into like factions run by Barrons (who control a majority of major trade) or there's these lawless lands that are run dredges of society. You either become a Barron by killing another Barron (which is what Quinn did) or you are an heir apparent. Ryder is more an heir presumptive because Quinn won't outright name him his heir even though everyone just assumes it.

This is because Quinn is batshit crazy and thinks he can just live forever through sheer stubbornness and will alone. This is especially hard to do because he has a massive brain tumor that's dwindling down what little bit of sanity he has leading him to make questionable choices such as killing the only doctor they have in the lands who would've been useful pretty much for the rest of the series but go off Quinn. Ryder has a lot of resentment towards his father, which I will get into in a minute, and at the same time has gone out of his way to prove to Quinn that he's a worthy heir. Except Quinn keeps comparing Ryder to his second and regent, Sunny, and he's just all around a shitty person in general.

NOW HERE'S THE AMAZING BACKSTORY WITH RYDER:

So, when Ryder was a child, he was kidnapped by these nomads who were trying to blackmail Quinn. Ryder's mother begged Quinn to pay the ransom and save Ryder. Quinn... refused. So the nomads tortured Ryder and (Gross warning) like cut off part of his toes and disfigured his foot in the hopes of crippling him and scaring Quinn into giving to their demands.

Quinn, again, refused.

Eventually Quinn's regent at the time, Waldo, defies Quinn's orders and goes to rescue Ryder from these nomads. Waldo defying Quinn is a big deal because he's a clipper which is basically a soldier (often brought in from the slave faction called Cogs) and they take their oaths to their Barrons very seriously. Barrons trust no one but their regents because again you can become a Barron by killing them. But Waldo always had a soft spot for Ryder.

SO Ryder is saved and eventually nursed back to health but he always has a bit of a tragedy cloud hanging around him because from what we were told Ryder was a very sweet, bright child before he was kidnapped and was brought back as "a broken bird" and he's been doing everything he can to get rid of the broken bird image ever since.

Quinn resented Ryder for making him look weak and Ryder resented Quinn for... Well being a heartless dick.

But here's the crazy part... They both, in their own way, still kind of loved each other.

Now I won't bore you with my rant about how the best antagonists are often the tragic figures who have fallen from grace (Peter Hale, Draco Malfoy, Loki to name a few) BUT I will say Ryder had the PERFECT foundation of showing that fall. He was an asshole and hard and spoiled and super privilege but also soft and still a little broken. There's a whole other narrative involved too with his childhood love and how his dad planned on marrying her but we won't get into that.

ANYWAYS Ryder still had this desperate need to prove to his dad that he was a worthy heir but in his attempts to prove himself (and his dad's fall into madness) his dad started seeing him as competition. Competition and another objects (like Quinn saw with most other characters but especially Sunny). But Quinn has this weird kind of pride when it comes to things that he considers his and an attack on his property is an attack on him. There's a character named the Widow who lured Ryder out and tried to kill him slowly and personally as well as Sunny as an attack on Quinn and he went bananas (sorta).

Ryder was fine eventually but he realized that trying to prove himself to his dad was never going to work so he decides to try the other option: which is killing his dad. Partially because if he doesn't, Ryder is smart enough to know that Quinn's going to get him killed, but also because Quinn's descent into madness is spiraling faster and faster and Ryder wants to protect the legacy. Nothing to inherit if his dad burns the whole thing to the ground!

Long story short, Sunny turns on Quinn and stabs him and everyone thinks Quinn is dead and Ryder takes credit for it therefore succeeding his dad by becoming not only Barron of his father's lands but some other Barron that got murdered by another subplot that was pointless.

Now Ryder is determined to bring peace to the lands (not out of some noble obligation but because he just wants people to chill the fuck out). And for the most part... he's doing okay.

BUT THEN PLOT TWIST HIS DAD IS ALIVE AND CRAZIER THAN EVER.

Basically his dad storms Ryder's house, chases him down in the garden, and they fight. But Ryder's foot that was crippled when he was a child trips him up and the fight gets even messier. Ryder's sword breaks and Quinn points the sword to his own chest and tells Ryder to finish him.

Ryder hesitates and so Quinn takes the sword and stabs Ryder. You know like a rational father would do.

Quinn then asks Ryder why he hesitated and Ryder whispers "because you're my father" before he dies in Quinn's arms. Quinn is... horrified because he realizes that with the death of Ryder is the death of the last parts of his own humanity. He mourns Ryder but also like... takes no responsibility for killing him but neither did Ryder so he can't process it. Later on he's haunted by Ryder but again the man has a giant grapefruit sized tumor in his brain so it's all very reverse Hamlet if you will.

SO LOOK AT ALL THIS POTENTIAL!

THE REASON I RAGE:

Is because Ryder was set up to fail from the beginning. Which is great!....... If that had actually happened. The show worked so hard to tell us that Ryder was a failure and a coward but if you look at it from a story perspective... Ryder was the opposite of a failure. Every time someone told him he couldn't do something, he proved them wrong. Again and again and again. But that was never good enough for anyone. So that vicious cycle would've been amazing to see!

But instead of exploring any of that, we had to watch a storyline that was frankly ridiculous from the beginning that took up way more time than it should. There's a character named MK, who was supposed to be inspired by the myth The Monkey King, but if you don't know that story then you never would've figured that out. Hell, I knew the story and didn't figure it out until I had to google his name because I kept forgetting it. In comparison to everything else happening in the show, this magical mythical storyline just didn't fit and I'm not kidding when I say I watched a season and a half of this show and forgot about MK every time.

Now if you noticed my icon is Buck in a Box. That's an inside joke I have with a friend about this fucking show. The first scene starts off with Sunny stumbling onto a group of Nomads who go absolutely feral about this massive box they don't want him to look inside. Turns out MK was in this box for reasons that were too weak for me to even remember but again MK was entirely forgettable. My friend and I kept talking about how it would've been better if Ryder had been in the box because the Ryder and Sunny rivalry had so much unexplored potential that would've been incredible if we started from the very beginning instead of just being told over and over again that Ryder hates being compared to Sunny.

Sunny is the main character and Quinn, unlike with Ryder, was incredibly proud to have Sunny "in his possession" and Ryder hated him for it.

But did we get to explore that? NO! Did we get to explore the parallels of Sunny and Ryder chafing at being considered possessions by Quinn? NO! Did we get to explore the trauma Ryder was working so hard to shake off? NO!

Instead the show spent so much energy victim blaming Ryder essentially for being the son of a Villain and his Nonsensical Ambitious Mother who had the misfortune of being kidnapped by bandits as a child while telling the audience that Ryder was never going to succeed. That Ryder had no honor and was a coward and weak.

They spent way more time trying to tell us that we should hate Ryder and that he was a bad guy but didn't do ANY of the work to show the fall from grace to prove that. Ryder remained a tragic figure that didn't fall from grace but was rather pushed off by lazy writing because they wanted to focus again on this magical ninja boy with a penchant for getting in the way and ruining everything.

I rage because Antagonist and Villain are not the same thing. Ryder had the potential of becoming a villain and his death by the hands of his father would've cycled him back into the role of a tragic figure. But instead... it was just wasted.

THAT is why I rage. You had the material right there and yet you spent so long telling us that we, the audience, don't like Ryder instead of showing us anything that would make us not like him (besides the whiny white boy thing).

Instead I found myself rooting for Ryder. Like could you imagine if Ryder and Sunny went against Quinn together instead of having the weakest rivalry known to man? Could you imagine Ryder's fall from grace of wanting peace in the lands as it turned to greed? Could you imagine Sunny becoming actual competition for Ryder instead of being manipulated to do so?

WE GOT NONE OF IT.

THIS is why I rage.

#I'm so sorry nonnie #I ranted #But you asked for it #So here it is #Oliver Stark #Ryder into the badlands #Into the badlands #anon #ask #answered

[inglorious-purpose]

First of all, I want to emphasize that I like Sophia di Martino and I think she did a wonderful job portraying Sylvie. I realize some people have different opinions and that’s cool; I just personally feel that she did a great job of getting into Sylvie’s head and showing her emotions and personality, given the less-than-stellar script she had to work with. I also think that with some fleshing out, Sylvie could be a really interesting and complex character.

Having said all that, anyone who reads my blog knows that I’m not a fan of S*lki because aside from a tender look here or gentle touch there, Sylvie treats Loki like shit. And this whole dynamic of being mostly an asshole while meting out the occasional sign of affection is a hallmark of abusive relationships. I mean, if Sylvie has a massive change of heart and starts treating Loki with the love and compassion he deserves, then I’ll be happy to see them together. Otherwise, big nope. (FWIW I’m not a Lokius shipper either.)

In any case, I found this quote from Sophia really interesting:

I think she definitely cares about Loki; it’s the closest she has ever been to loving another being. The fact that he cares about her, too, is probably wildly uncomfortable for her. She’s never been close to another person her whole life. So it’s super complicated. ...

Ultimately, she chooses her revenge, and she chooses the path that she’s been planning to go down for her whole life—to kill He Who Remains. [To do that], she has to sort of get rid of Loki. I like to think of it as, she’s making sure he’s okay by getting him out of the way. He doesn’t stop her from doing what she needs to do, but she’s able to put him somewhere safe for a minute.

She definitely cares about him. I don’t know if she's in love with him. It’s such a complicated thing because he’s a sort of variant of her, too.

source

I think the part about Sylvie not knowing how she really feels about Loki is a totally fair read on the character. She’s confused, and who can blame her? She’s only known the guy for a day or two. Sure he seems nice but he nearly ruined her lifelong goal of revenge, and almost got them killed on Lamentis. And now he suddenly wants them to spend their entire future together -- like, dude, slow down a little! (Been there girl, been there.)

As for Sylvie pushing Loki through the Time Door to keep him safe, I don’t quite buy it. I mean, she just spent the past five minutes trying to shred his ass with her sword. She’s not holding back at all. He’s on the defensive, clearly trying to block her blows without hurting her, while she’s just hacking away. Also, what exactly is she protecting him from? Sylvie doesn’t think anything bad is going to happen if she kills HWR. She says he’s lying, she doesn’t believe in his “boogeymen,” she doesn’t even believe that Loki believes him. She’s decided that this is all a ploy for Loki to get his throne. Lastly, she sends him back to the TVA, where he’s still a wanted man. Unless Mobius finds him before anyone else does, he’s likely to be taken prisoner again, maybe killed. It’s not like she sent him to a happy meadow of daisies or some shit. She breaks his heart and nearly breaks his neck too. (Moment of appreciation for Tom’s stunt double. Good job, man.)

So is she trying to keep him safe? No. I can understand why people want to interpret it this way -- and in fact I’ve seen a number of fans claim that she was trying to protect him -- but the argument doesn’t hold up with the evidence. Yes, she looks sad after she yeets him. She probably regrets it. But her actions in that moment are simply cruel.

I kind of suspect that Sylvie is being set up as an antagonist against Loki rather than a companion, which could lead to some interesting dynamics down the line. If that happens, perhaps Loki will find better friends and maybe even a decent love interest who treats him with respect and care. After all he’s been through, Loki deserves it.

#loki #loki series #loki show #loki series critical #Sophia di martino #marvel #MCU #loki meta #loki deserves better