edge-of-silvermoon:

rewritefate:

lostlokichaos:

Othering

Loki of Thor1, Avengers and The Dark World. I identified with him in several ways, mostly because he was other. He was different, an outsider – as I was and am still.

Then along comes Ragnarok and a bunch of fans declare that they love this version. The version where his otherness is mocked and attacked. Where his pain is invalidated and his struggles deemed either unimportant or joke fodder. These people are saying they will not love Loki as he is, but they will ‘love’ him when he is flattened, confined, reduced to something unthreatening.

It feels very personal. I’m old enough and cynical enough to not let it hurt (much) but I have heard the message: to be loved, you cannot be other. It is a message I’ve heard all my life. And Ragnarok is a movie that embodies that nasty little message. Ragnarok-positive posts? Nails on a chalkboard most of the time. They’re certainly not a positive thing for me to see on my dash (Public blog, public space. Tumblr has tools to manage what we see. I use them, I’m ok.)

But to those people I follow who write wonderful thinky posts, you are treasured.

Loki fans from Ragnarok and people that are a fan of Loki character from another movies should be a two separated fandom. 

I seriously think ao3 should provide tags to separate these two fandoms. It will save us lots of grief.

Oh my God, yes. And we should use different tags on Tumblr, too. I think my system of using Thor* and Loki* to designate their Ragnarok incarnations is very handy; it’s a lot easier for their side than typing ragnarok!thor. Or r-thor and r-loki, like using d- and l- to designate the different chiralities of enantiomers.

Thanks, @lostlokichaos. It’s always nice to know I’m not shouting into a void! And you’re right about invalidating Loki’s other-ness… which makes it ironic that the Ragnarok stans are constantly calling Loki* a “queer icon” and calling us (many of whom are queer) homophobic for not liking his stereotypical queer-coded villain/ effete limp-wristed sissy portrayal. It’s also utterly confusing that Taika keeps using “space orphan” as an insult. Why does being an orphan somehow reflect badly on Loki…? His story of being adopted (or kidnapped?) by a conquering society, raised in ignorance of his origin, and taught to fear and loathe the race he was born to should have played perfectly into the anti-imperialist theme that Ragnarok was (half-assedly) trying to get across; but apparently Taika despised Loki too much to be willing to put him on the oppressees’ side of the ledger, so he pooh-poohed the idea that it might be a source of genuine, justified distress or trauma.