Tag: Anonymous

Self-awareness is hard for some. But it seems that you manufacture hornets nests and then complain about the stings. (While also being derisive toward others who make a fuss about the same venom.) At times it seems as if you’re actively /trying/ to drive off followers. At others, as if your singular goal is to prop up your own identity of intellectual superiority. (All of which, it must be pointed out, is ironically predicated on analysis of a big tent popcorn movie.)

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First of all, when I want to start some shit, I have the balls (ovaries?) to do it under my own name. It seems to me that your claim to the moral high ground is somewhat undermined by the cowardice of hiding behind anonymity. I’ve turned off anonymous asks, so if you want to give me any more crap, you’re going to have to do it openly. I’m not holding my breath.

Second, most of my complaints about hornets’ nests are directed at my own tendency to get into disagreements… and they’re not entirely sincere. As an academic philosopher, I live and thrive in an environment in which people can disagree strongly on theoretical issues and remain friends, because they don’t take it personally or make it personal (or accuse each other of racism for not liking a movie, LOL). The “venom” I dislike on this site is that no one seems to understand the concept of respectful disagreement. If the only way to maintain (manufactured, superficial) harmony around here is for most people to imbibe their opinions from what seems to be the consensus, or from the few loudest voices, and for the people who disagree with the apparent consensus to keep their mouths shut for fear of hate or ostracism, then yeah, I’m going to disrupt the harmony. It would be nice if we could maintain harmony while all freely expressing our considered views, but apparently that’s not in the cards.

And if I’m driving away followers by arguing for views they disagree with, so be it.

I’ve also attracted a fair number of new followers since I started writing and reblogging criticism of Ragnarok, so… I guess it’s just a matter of taste.

Some people (I know it’s shocking) are capable of following someone they disagree with on one issue either by ignoring posts about it or by filtering tags. You will notice that I tag all my criticism of Thor: Ragnarok with “thor ragnarok criticism.” You are welcome to filter the tag. You know what? You’re also welcome to unfollow me, block me, or even (if you have XKit) blacklist my URL. You don’t have to hate-lurk on my blog (another behavior that kinda undermines your claim to moral superiority).

As to “prop[ping] up [my] own identity of intellectual superiority […] predicated on analysis of a big tent popcorn movie”… that’s kind of what we do on this site, isn’t it? Analysis of big tent popcorn movies? And sorry not sorry, but I don’t exactly check my academic training at the door. Apparently bringing actual arguments, evidence, and expertise to bear on the discussion of popcorn movies strikes some people as automatically condescending. I think that’s a problem with you rather than a problem with me (speaking of the difficulty of self-awareness), because again, many (less insecure) people appreciate it. I’m only deliberately condescending when someone has been a dick to me first. Otherwise, I’m just doing my job, but with the movies we fangirl over on Tumblr rather than the historical philosophy I fangirl over for actual money.

I’m honestly not sure why I’m making serious points in a response to a jerk who just wanted to insult me, but here’s another serious point: popular art is still art. One era’s popular art is the next era’s high art. The Athenian tragedy competitions were like football games. Going to Shakespeare’s plays was like going to comedy clubs (complete with heckling). Liszt was a pop star. The premiere of Wagner’s Ring Cycle was like Coachella. I’m not saying the MCU is going to be a landmark of this era’s artistic production, but the fact that it’s popular art doesn’t disqualify it from applying careful, discerning, well-informed interpretation.

And yes, I am self-aware enough to know that I can be an asshole sometimes; you don’t get far as a woman in academic philosophy otherwise. Are you self-aware enough to know what sending nasty anonymous messages makes you? I doubt it, so I’ll help you out:

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saw ur letter to fandom post and was reading through the comments. someone mentioned talking about loki being responsible for odins death. didn’t mean much to the post itself, but i wondered about ur opinion. do u think loki killed odin?

Better tag @sarah1281 on this one because it was her comment. I do think Loki had some culpability – maybe not in Odin’s death as such, but in the manner of it, and of course the fact that he didn’t have the opportunity to warn them about Hela. But no, I don’t think Loki killed Odin. I think Odin was very old and tired, had been putting off Odinsleep too much, and was devastated by the death of Frigga, his companion, advisor, and love. I suspect that he was also hollowed out by his thorough failure with Loki, and the fact that Loki was so angry with him that he was willing to wipe his memory, banish him, and usurp the throne. To the extent that that’s the case, Loki is indirectly responsible, but I do think it’s also Odin’s recognition of his own failure, which isn’t exactly Loki’s fault.

I came into the fandom because of Thor: Ragnarok, mainly because I love Valkyrie. I thought Thor’s character was sort of off-putting. How is his characterization different in the other movies?

Hi Anon, are you here to join the club of racists (apparently) who don’t understand why we’re supposed to like Taika Waititi’s interpretation of Thor? Welcome!

Honestly, I think the best thing you can do is to watch the other movies if you haven’t. In the first movie, Thor starts out as an arrogant warrior who loves to fight and thinks violence is the solution to every problem, but his father strips him of his powers and banishes him to Earth to learn humility. Aside from the arrogance and eagerness to fight, he’s very loyal to his friends and he has a gallantry about him… well, he’s representative of an ancient warrior culture, really. He loves to fight and feast and flirt; he’s a bit bombastic, but has a sense of chivalry; he picks on little bro Loki sometimes, he can be a bit of a jock/bully, but he loves and trusts Loki (more than he should) and isn’t willing to give up on him even when he’s descended into madness and is doing horrible things.

Thor tells the story of Thor’s maturation into a more patient and self-sacrificing person, and he continues that process of maturation through the other movies we see him in: The Avengers, Thor: The Dark World, and Avengers: Age of Ultron. He’s still a little too ready to solve problems by hitting things in The Avengers, still a little arrogant and Homeric-warrior-bro (he’s Achilles, basically), but he’s getting better, learning how to be more of a team player. In TDW and AOU he becomes progressively more serious and thoughtful, largely because terrible things keep happening in his life… he still has a sly sense of humor, and he spends much of AOU subtly trolling the human Avengers, but he’s also become very canny and perceptive.

Ragnarok just gave him a complete personality makeover with almost no regard for the way he’d been portrayed before. He was never that inarticulate – the Asgardians used to speak in an elevated, slightly archaic register, the way they do in the comics – and he was never as… mean as he is in Ragnarok. I mean, he’s a bit of a douche in Thor, but the point was that he got better.

we saw a little of what thor and loki were like as children in the thor movie, any more thoughts on what their personalities might have been like (in the mcu canon, that is)

We have very little to go on, canonically; there’s just the one scene with Odin in the vault. From that, I think, we’re supposed to gather that child!Thor was confident, rambunctious, and belligerent, while child!Loki was more hesitant and anxious – and especially anxious to keep up with his big brother and gain his father’s approval. This is all very much in keeping with the way Thor and Loki are portrayed as young adults early in the first Thor movie; I think we’re supposed to see the seeds of their adult characteristics in their behavior as children.

I also have some headcanons about Thor and Loki as children, one of which I put into my Thor/Loki fic Starting Over (there’s nothing sexual or romantic in this passage, though, so it’s safe for non-shippers):

Loki had been sensitive as a child, prone to cry at what others might consider small hurts or slights or disappointments. When he had grown old enough to join the other noble children of the palace at play, they mocked him for it, called him weak, babyish, womanish, unmanly. Even before adolescence, Loki had learned to keep his tears—and along with them, it seemed, his genuine smiles—to himself. Thor had grown up to be free with his emotions, to weep unabashedly for fallen comrades or lost loves, even at a bard’s haunting rendition of a tragic tale. But Loki never unlearned the lesson that vulnerability was weakness, that tears were a source of shame. He wept in the presence of others only when his anguish was so great that he could not hold it back, and even then would try to hide his tears, to turn aside or cover his face or find a way to escape.

So when Thor saw Loki crying openly, he felt like a child again, watching his little brother fall and skin his knee when their mother was not there to dry his tears and kiss it better. Loki’s wounds were too deep to salve with such simple comfort, but Thor could think of nothing to do but to fold his brother in his arms and let Loki cry on his shoulder.

That’s meant to account for the fact that Loki often seems to be on the edge of tears, but only spills over in moments of real crisis/confrontation, and that he’s basically a volcano of bottled-up emotions (resentment, jealousy, self-doubt, self-loathing) that erupts into full-fledged psychosis with the disastrous revelations of the first Thor film. I mean, Thor has some anger management problems, which is only to be expected in a patriarchal warrior culture, but otherwise seems to have a reasonably healthy relationship with his emotions. Loki is a poster child for long-term untreated mental illness.

know any good fics with evil!thor

I’m assuming you mean Thor/Loki fics? Because that’s all I’ve got.

A while back @karuvapatta wrote a series that’s literally called Evil Thor. It’s restricted, though, so you can only get to it if you’re logged in on AO3.

@laydee-liesmith also has a series called The Road to Hell… with the following description: “A series of unrelated one-shots with a similar theme: innocent, or ‘in over his head,’ little!Lokis and BadMan! (or at least morally questionable) Thors.”

I’m not completely sure if @illwynd‘s fic Dead wings carried like a paper kite would count because Thor is a zombie, so I wouldn’t say he’s responsible for his “evil” actions.

Hello. I read your tags on the post with pictures of Tom and Chris interview and you said that you feel bad for Tom. Why? Ahhh sorry if it sounds weird, I don’t know much about actors and am just curious and worried now. Thanks in advance.

No worries. It has to do with the apparent crush/sexual tension between Tom Hiddleston and Chris Hemsworth which led some of their fans to start shipping them under the name “Hiddlesworth.” It used to seem that the attraction was mutual, even if Tom always seemed more attracted to Chris than vice versa, but recently (during the filming and promotion of Ragnarok) it’s seemed completely unrequited. Tom still seems to fawn over Chris, gush about how wonderful he is, give him puppy eyes when they’re together, etc.; but Chris seems to be distancing himself from Tom (especially now that Chris and Taika are joined at the hip), acting somewhat cold and dismissive toward him. I don’t know what happened, if anything, but I’m not the only one who’s made this observation. I feel bad for Tom that he seems to be the only one still in that relationship, whether crush or bromance, and I honestly think it’s kind of ridiculous that the asymmetry should go in that direction, considering that, as far as I can see, Tom is much more intelligent and talented, including as an actor.

Top 5 tv shows (for the ask meme)? PS I love your blog <3

Aww, thanks!!

  1. “Firefly” (though alas, its tenure was too brief)
  2. “The West Wing” (seasons 1-4… I stopped watching after Aaron Sorkin stopped writing)
  3. “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”
  4. “Game of Thrones” (though not this last season; it’s gotten predictable since they left GRRM’s source material behind)
  5. “Cowboy Bebop”

Honorable mentions for “Wishbone” (my favorite childhood TV show) and “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” (gotta get my MCU loyalties in there).

Sorry if you’ve already talked about this (I saw some discussion going around, but I didn’t pay attention cause I hadn’t seen the movie). The EW article that talked about Steve and Tony’s sexual tension also believes that Thor will be mad at Loki when he discovers that Loki has the tesseract, but I kind of assumed he knew? I mean, he didn’t seem at all worried about Loki getting out, and he knew it was in the vault, and throughout the whole movie he anticipated Loki very well.

I think Thor wasn’t worried about Loki getting out because he had the Commodore (a.k.a. the orgy ship). At the end of the movie we see the little ship perched on top of the big ship in some kind of docking station. I do think that Loki took the Tesseract, but I don’t think that’s how he got out of Asgard before it was destroyed.

Frankly, though, Thor really should have seen that coming when he sent Loki into the Vault. Did he really think that Loki was going to just let the Tesseract go flying off into space somewhere when Asgard blew up?

(P.S. Is anyone else kind of envisioning Thor and Valkyrie doing a Han and Leia at the end of Return of the Jedi?  V: Loki wasn’t on that thing when it blew. T: He wasn’t. I can feel it.)