You are the only real superpower I ever had

...to be clear, I don't actually think "every alter who fights with the host" counts as "a persecutor." Eventually Steven will remember "hang on, Marc was awful to me right back," and feel less guilty about this.

you can still create fanworks when it comes to old media!! PLEASE do!! there are always going to be new fans who will appreciate it, and veteran fans who are dying for new content and new perspectives. also, less than a year is NOTHING. the original Star Trek series was on TV six decades ago and there are still people losing their minds over it, writing stories and reblogging gifsets daily, and that's only one example.

Avengers: Infinity War (2018)

In Thor 1, and only Thor 1, with ONLY the context of Thor 1, I can argue that Odin was just trying to reach out to his kids and couldn't quite manage it. That he was a good, but flawed father, who tried. That opening scene where he grabs their hands is extremely soft. Odin couldn't fight the Odinsleep and he had been putting it off, but rather than immediately go to sleep after Thor was banished he finds Loki to make sure he's okay. I genuinely think that if Odin hadn't fallen asleep, he could have talked Loki down from the rest of the chaos of the movie. When you add in all the movies after Thor 1, that's when I'm like "hmmm. no. with more context, you're actually a terrible person and father."

I've read so many fics where Odin is a good parent. I've written a few myself. I actually started a one-shot series, now deleted, of times where Odin was a good parent. I love the idea of him being a good parent, but I just don't see that as canon reality. With how he's treated his children, the combined evidence of how all of them turned out speaks volumes for how loved they felt. Even if we got to see Odin's perspective, that doesn't matter to me. Odin doesn't get to decide he isn't the bad guy to his children. What he did affected them permanently. Are his children biased in how they view him, so the audience is too? Yes. But again, Odin doesn't get to be the good guy just because his motivations are muddled and more complicated than we usually think of them as being. His children were victims of him and you can see that time and time again. That is something that I personally can't look past. Even if he had the most loving, deeply caring reason in the entire world to treat them like that, Thor, Loki, and Hela deserved better than what they got. They are not okay and if Odin had been a good parent, they would have felt loved and more secure. Being a bad parent is different than being a bad person, but Odin manages to get 2/2 with the context of later movies.

I said in the tags of a post I reblogged discussing Odin not being as horrible of a person as we consider him to be, the post you tagged me on, that "I write him as abusive because I find it interesting" and to be clear - I do think that Odin, with all the context of every movie we have, is abusive. I do not think he is physically abusive, and I didn't clarify that. There is little to no canon evidence of that, but THAT is what I put into my fics because I find it interesting. Physical abuse. It's not that it's the Worst Type of Abuse or that I'm trying to play everything up just because I can. IT's just one type of abuse that I want to explore. It's fanfiction. I am exploring the possibility of what Thor and Loki would be like if they were physically abused. I wrote a fic where Hela was the victim of human experimentation and like. I had fun. People love that story. It isn't canon and I know that, but that doesn't mean I can't write it. It's very canon-adjacent.

But, regardless of that, emotional neglect is abuse. Thor, Hela, and Loki in canon absolutely have symptoms of being emotionally neglected and somewhat have some of being emotionally abused, You can see Frigga being emotionally neglectful to Loki in the TDW, and the way Loki reacts to it suggests that he's not surprised and he is used to it. Odin tells Loki his birthright was to die as a child on a frozen rock and that he should be grateful to Odin for not killing him. You know. As a baby. Odin is extremely dismissive and emotionally neglectful of both Thor and Loki in the TDW. He compares the woman Thor almost died for to a goat and you can see that it hurts Thor, but he says nothing in his defense. Thor is severely depressed in TDW and you can see it everywhere, and Odin doesn't care. Frigga doesn't care. They ignore it because it's easier. Sif is really the only person to ask if he's okay, and that's at the end of Thor 1. That to me suggests that their home environment was not very healthy. You know that entire conversation of "reassurance" between Frigga and Thor in Endgame? That is a master class of emotional neglect. She didn't help him. She didn't listen to him. Not a healthy environment.

I think deep, deep, deeeeeep down in canon, Odin and Frigga wanted to be good parents - to Thor and Loki, they would leave Hela in prison for a 1000 years and be cool with it, oh wait they actually did - but they didn't have the time/energy/mental health to manage it. They're both the rulers of nine worlds, they don't have time to raise kids. Thor and Loki are vying for their attention constantly which suggests that it's a very rare thing to receive from their parents. Thor is the most attention-starved person in MCU in the first Thor. Emotional neglect!! I genuinely think that Thor and Loki more so raised each other than their parents.

So no, I don't like Odin. I think he's a complex character and I'm happy to discuss him in depth, but I think he is an awful, awful parent. Like I said, there is a distinction between parenting and the person, and Odin is a TERRIBLE parent. He's not an amazing person either, but I think he tried. Odin didn't decide to stop collecting realms on a whim, something must have happened that made him value peace over bloodshed. He told Thor and Loki that "a wise king must never seek out war, but must always be ready for it" so he was trying to be a better king and not leaping at things with his teeth bared. He tries to stop the war with Laufey. Idk. It's complicated. Canon is complicated. People are very rarely black and white and Odin isn't an exception to that rule.

The man of the people, Jake Lockley.

I spent a good few hours really picking apart Oscar Isaac’s stupid face.

turning out like this

is (heartbreaking but also) so heartwarming. and almost kind of comforting in a weird way. of course it hurt to see steven fall of the boat. especially because he was also worthy of entering the field of reeds. he should have gotten to see it too (and jake too of course).

but there is also something very beautiful about the fact that it was only marc there.

Marc conforms to cope, with suppressing parts of his identity related to his autism, his DID, his trauma. He masks, he hides, he lies, despite it all taking even more of a toll on him. But you watch episode 5 and Steven's effects on Marc are...so obvious.

There's this innate vulnerability he has around Steven, both in his physicality and his emotions. Without even really trying, Steven is already teaching Marc self-love, just like how Layla teaches him more secure attachment styles.

But really, Marc doesn't fully understand how bad he was/is at hiding and being chronically, viscerally, utterly, compulsively incapable of allowing himself peace until. He meets Jake. Then there's this slow but violent realization on Marc's end that that thing he's had to live with all his life? Where all his love for the people around him never quite made its way back into him intrinsically? Where self-worth was always contrived at best and a Gordian's knot at worst? Where cynicism was always reaching for his ankles, ready to hold him back from the very notion of latching onto faith?

Jake has it all, but so much worse.

in the fucking kitchen.

He could've hid these items literally ANYWHERE. But no. THE KITCHEN WAS THE BEST PLACE MARC COULD THINK OF

Anyway look at this for reference okay

Basically, Marc consistently came home after every missions and just shoved his shit above the kitchen and hoped for the best. And it worked! Until it didn't and he forgot to put the plank fully back into place.

Now to explain further, what makes everything slightly funnier about Steven finding Marc's stuff later on, is the fact that not only did Marc obviously slip up after all these years, but Gus is the reason why.

Like, I imagine Marc getting home after acquiring the scarab and climbing onto his little table stand and just putting his shit away in the kitchen like normal, only to glance down and see poor Gus just belly up in his tank (which is literally right next to the kitchen as you can see in my example). So in a panic, he just haphazardly puts the little plank of wood back and rushes to the nearest fish store to find a replacement. And we all know how that goes from there.

Anyway, all of his years of secrecy and perfect planning were thrown out the window because he couldn't think of literally ANYWHERE ELSE to hide his shit.

It's just impressive what he did to maintain the above.

Especially the moment where Steven was wondering who/what Marc was (even questioning if marc was a demon sdkfjgk) and asking Marc straight up what he was, in ep 2. Marc answered him saying he served Khonshu as an avatar, which meant steven indirectly also did. Steven didnt buy it at first, but that isnt the point. The point is that it made steven at least quit wondering (out loud) how Marc came to be. Who was Marc really, in relation to steven? Why was he there, at all?

And technically Marc wasnt even lying but damn what a smart way to make it look like he answered steven's question. What a smart way to not delve into the specifics about his existence.

Look at this

Do you know what that is?

Here

Just less than a month after I finished the show the first time I was in Vienna I went to the Museum of Natural History and I read this. The original is in Germany however there was a copy of it there. I went to that Museum two more times and this still fascinated me.

Here is what I took.

I just absolutely love when the writers of a show put things like this. Little references that you don't usually catch normally. The cosmos and Moon Knight, it's amazing.

This brought me so much genuine joy. I got so excited when I was seeing it for the 9th time or something, put it on my IG story and everything.

in the fucking kitchen.

He could've hid these items literally ANYWHERE. But no. THE KITCHEN WAS THE BEST PLACE MARC COULD THINK OF

Anyway look at this for reference okay

Basically, Marc consistently came home after every missions and just shoved his shit above the kitchen and hoped for the best. And it worked! Until it didn't and he forgot to put the plank fully back into place.

Now to explain further, what makes everything slightly funnier about Steven finding Marc's stuff later on, is the fact that not only did Marc obviously slip up after all these years, but Gus is the reason why.

Like, I imagine Marc getting home after acquiring the scarab and climbing onto his little table stand and just putting his shit away in the kitchen like normal, only to glance down and see poor Gus just belly up in his tank (which is literally right next to the kitchen as you can see in my example). So in a panic, he just haphazardly puts the little plank of wood back and rushes to the nearest fish store to find a replacement. And we all know how that goes from there.

Anyway, all of his years of secrecy and perfect planning were thrown out the window because he couldn't think of literally ANYWHERE ELSE to hide his shit.

BUT the last hug is backwards!! Marc is hanging on in Steven. Not only because Marc though he has lost Steven and is happy for see him alive again, but because now we know Steven is Marc's protector. Now we know Steven is the one who has been Marc's support and strength when he needed to be protected