Tagged by the cutest @big-bangtans 😻 I’m the ugly baby on the right held by my late grandmother 💓
Tagging @wow-pandastic-baby @darkskiesbrightlights @daesunglass @gzbae @topmp4 @tabihonest @brooklynbaebae @youngbaebae @bigban9 @taedaddyx @suntories
As a new fan of BIGBANG, I have to say that other than having these amazing songs to listen to, men to look up to (and swoon over) I just love all of VIP. They are the best fans that compare the fans and the members against each other and there's rarely (or never) been this "I've been a fan longer than you" thing going on and everyone is just so happy, proud and supportive of these 5 brilliantly talented people who are just unbelievably beautiful on the inside and out. :)
i think it’s true that we know how to love the boys well. it’s a tight relationship that’s been going on for 9 years, it’s gotten to the point where you dont crave them doing anything more and you just are grateful for them, and you trust them. bb feels the same way towards us VIPs.
it’s great that you’ve found the right blogs to follow that brings no drama but there are always a tiny amount of people in the fandom who acts that way! it’s been v smooth so far during MADE, but prior, there ARE fandom fights hahaha. just enjoy this era really, really well. i hope u become a vip for more years to come~
Hi!! I've been looking for a pattern to knit a blanket and I stumbled on a basket weave stitch - I've found a site that said I could "use any number of stitches for each block — 4x4, 5x5, 3x7, and so on — for variations on the basic basketweave" could you please help explain what this means? Sorry if this is a really silly question, I'm just very confused!
Not a silly question. :)
The basketweave stitch creates fabric that looks like woven fabric simply by alternating blocks of knitting and purling on each row:
(photo source)
What your pattern is saying is that each square up above can be any number of knit stitches, or purl stitches, that you want – and you can do it for as many number of rows as you want.
So for example, if you wanted to make a 4 x 4 basketweave stitch as suggested in the pattern you found, and depending on your gauge, you’d knit 4 stitches, purl 4 stitches, knit 4 stitches, purl 4 stitches, all the way across the row – and then do the inverse on the wrong side of the work – for a total of four consecutive rows.
This is my understanding anyway. I hope this is helpful. Does anyone else have thoughts on this?
Hi! The piece I'm working on now is a sort of throw/blanket so it's going to be pretty big, I was hoping you'd know of any soft, but also affordable yarns (with pretty colours) to recommend? :)
One of my go tos when I want to make blankets is Stylecraft yarns. They have a range of acrylic and acrylic blend yarns that are available in a huge range of colours, and are also affordable. Sirdar and Hayfield also offer good value yarns, but not in as wide a range of colour.
Urgh I speak 6 languages and am currently learning Korean & French. Your English is PERFECT. Screw that obnoxious anon, that person should be glad that you're even posting these amazing gifs. Even if your language isn't perfect - ITS DIFFICULT TRYING TO LEARN A LANGUAGE SO DON'T HATE YO! P/s, please be my tutor for French!!
omg 6 languages what is your secret???? I want to speak 6 languages too thank you!! I can help with French anytime ^^
but i need to clarify something first? i actually love loki as a character? i think he's a great character and a great performance and all that shit? and i wish i could just make loki a drink and pat him on the shoulder and that would help him, but i don't think it would very much, because he's just a terrible excuse for a person and he he needs to be smacked in the face a lot because he is terrible
a very (very very very very very) long stream of consciousness, unproofread response under the cut, where i try to explain how i feel about loki
and i'm torn between kind of wishing that he were actually canonically a more sympathetic, less shitty dude (or similarly wishing that he would have a really good redemption arc), and knowing that those things aren't true to the character as written and performed, and that all the stuff that makes him horrible is also the stuff that makes him so interesting as a character — i mean hiddleston's performance is so good i would probably just be mooning over ~wonderful perfect loki~ the way i moon over francis crawford of lymond if loki were less awful but still, in canon, as written, if you look at the text, he's pretty much awful. i can be a huge fan of him but also recognize that he's terrible, kind of the way i can be a huge fan of snape (one of my favorites from the HP series) without having to excuse and rationalize every shitty thing he does, which leads me to part 2 of the question.
it's not that i'm totally against seeing him that way; i think it's pretty objectively clear that he is all three of those things
what i'm against is using those characteristics to romanticize him or excuse his behavior
i don't really know how you see him so maybe we actually have more in common than you think? like i actually do see him as those things i just don't see them as necessarily the most defining parts of his character
basically it boils down to: loki tells himself a story to himself, about himself, that justifies his actions: he was wronged, he was robbed of his due, he was cast out, he was unloved. he tells himself these things, and then he says to himself "and this makes my actions right. i am deserving of doing whatever i want, because these things are true." as viewers, we shouldn't believe him so easily.
i admit that he is a little bit right. that's what makes the lie so effective, it's based in truth.
odin is not going to win father of the year (that family life is hella rough, man), and loki was wronged in having his past hidden from him — even though it's kind of a good intentions pave the road to hell thing, i don't think odin had bad intent in hiding the truth from loki, i think it honestly was because he wanted to protect his son.
that doesn't mean it was right. but it does mean that it wasn't out of malice or lack of love (which loki steadfastly refuses to acknowledge).
ideally, odin would have done a much better job of making peace with the jotuns, would not have allowed asgardians to make the frost giants the boogeymen of children's nightmares, but one of the themes in the thor movies is that the omnipotence of the throne is wholly illusory. maybe it's really not in odin's power to reorder all the ingrained prejudices of asgard; maybe this shitty, shitty thing he does is the best way he can see to protect the child he's decided to raise. but, whatever the case, he is accountable for his actions. he bears responsibility to loki's crisis of identity. ultimately, odin's choice, whether it seemed wise when he made it or not, caused far more harm than good. he is responsible for what transpires in the movies. insofar as that is true, loki's right in his assessment of events. but odin's not the only one responsible for the things that happen; odin's actions don't relieve loki of his own responsibility.
this is my thing: yeah, loki's right about individual accusations he makes against other characters, but he totally misses the forest for the trees when he uses those correct observations to excuse himself of responsibility for his own crap actions.
when he's talking with frigga and he calls the lives he's taken a "handful" compared to the number of people (human and otherwise) odin has directly or indirectly killed, he's technically correct, but he misses the bigger point, which is that motives matter.
odin has blood on his hands as the cost of ruling. loki killed people because loki was having a temper tantrum. several temper tantrums. he refuses to admit the difference.
loki doesn't hold himself responsible in any way for the manner in which he handles his situation. he doesn't hold himself accountable for his own part in it. it's a fundamental truth of his character that he is always externalizing responsibility for his actions. he blames the people around him for everything, he never owns the things he does, unless they feed his ego.
this is because loki is one of the worst narcissists ever.
the thing about narcissism isn't that narcissists don't feel pain or grief or confusion, it's that they don't feel much in the way of empathy, they see their own wounds as the only pain that's real, the only pain that matters, and that is pretty freakin' unattractive
the dude is so angry about not being king it's practically deranged, and it's also kind of proof of how wrong he is about... everything he thinks of himself? he doesn't have that level of rage at his brother getting throne because ~odin told him he was born to be a king~ ("i was merely giving truth to the lie i was fed my entire life" is that external blame thing!) rather, his anger is because he's incapable of understanding that the lesson in that statement is "even though you will not both be king you must still both be like a king in wisdom, dignity, and strength because even if you do not have the crown, you will still have the burden."
he doesn't get that it's outlining an expectation for comportment, a responsibility to be borne, a standard to meet, not making a promise
i also think it's reasonable to see asgard as having some form of primogeniture; to me it makes a lot more sense than "oh, both kids have an equal chance of getting the throne," so i see loki's attitude towards the throne as kind of this vague bitter hope that he will prove himself so much more awesome than thor that all the rules will get broken and he'll ~be king anyway~
i mean i can see the childhood as a direct competition for the throne, too, but in that case, loki's still a got a self-perception/attitude problem because he's astoundingly incapable of understanding why thor is, even when he's a spoiled brat, a better choice for king; more open, more social, able to gather people to him easily — he's a natural leader. a king must have that. loki is... i mean if he cared about the kingdom more than his own glory, he'd concentrate on being the best damn king's council he could ever be. he'd realize they make a good team and that thor makes a great figurehead and he'd work with that. he'd also understand that being king sucks balls (i am still wrestling with what thor says at the end of thor 2 because the movie shows no evidence that loki understood any of that ever? like where did thor get that? was he just being nice? it's like so out of left field.)
here it's also important to remember that odin is not just any old dad; he's not raising his kids to be happy, healthy, self-fulfilled adults who find their own path in life. (thor should have known the real odin would never have let him walk off like that, not with the kingdom in the condition it's in) he's raising future kings, counselors, generals; these boys will, unless he cuts them out, casts them out, inherit tremendous power, because of the nature of the system in which they are all participating. they are danger and disaster waiting to happen, ruin waiting to happen, demons waiting burn the kingdom down. his first responsibility is to try and stamp out that danger, mould them and make sure they understand what it means to be king. obviously, he does this very badly. i mean, he fucking fails on almost every level. he just straight-up fails. (he kind of succeeds with thor? but not really on his own merits; it's the experience of loss that humbles thor, and the generosity and straightforwardness of simple people that grounds him) loki is right in his rage at odin; he's not right in pretending that that anger excuses anything else that he's done.
thor's affection for his brother and the weird shit it makes him say aside, loki does not understand or respect the burden of the crown. he only sees the accolades, not the responsibility. he uses rhetoric about responsibility in order to prop up his own sense of his intelligence and competence. he uses rhetoric about the complexities of rule when trying to highlight how much superior he is to his brother, how much smarter he is, not because he really cares about ruling well ("a benevolent god" is the wrong idea about kingship, that "that oaf" gets the new car and he has to go everywhere on foot is the whole of loki's problem). having the throne proves he's better, that's why he wants it.
canonical loki is kind of like andrew jackson. andrew jackson transformed the american presidency by reinventing the office of the president as a direct representative of the whole people, preeminent over the congress. this altered american politics forever, and not necessarily for the better, making the congressional system even more distinct from its parliamentary cousins. jackson did that not because he necessarily really cared about more direct democracy (which is a somewhat more unstable form of government), but because jackson wanted more power for himself. andrew jackson cared about the glory of andrew jackson. this is also true of loki's relationship to the thone: loki cares about the glory of loki, not the duties of a king. if he cared about the duties of a king, he would never have let the jotuns into asgard in the first place in the first movie, risking the security of his own kingdom, risking (and wasting!) the lives of his own people.
letting the jotuns into the weapons vault during his brother's coronation is a massive indication of who he was before he learned any of the things that send him over the edge. it shows us who he already was before the events of the three movies we've seen with him, and he was not a good person. an interesting one, yes. a smart one, yes. tied with thor for my second favorite character in the whole mcu? you betchya. (cap is #1 always and forever) but he's not a good person. he was pissed at his brother because he doesn't understand the difference between being "born to be a king" (a set of responsibilities to bear and expectations to live up to) and "getting the throne because you showed up" (a spoiled infant's view of life).
heavy is the head that wears the crown, right? that's what thor's finally learned — and when he learned it, he ran from it, at once the smartest and most cowardly thing he's done. loki really hasn't learned it, thor's weirdly inaccurate comment aside — but he also doesn't want to rule really. he just wants the throne because he's jealous of thor and thor is going to get the throne; he wants to prove he's better and taking the throne proves that.
loki is petty. (because he's a narcissist.)
he can only see the fact that he isn't getting the shiny toy, that he isn't getting the glory, because he's a vain, self-obsessed dillweed.
look, i'm not trying to say that loki's the only asshole in these stories. thor is also raised to believe that certain things are simply due to him, he also fails to understand the difference between what "born to be a king" really means and "getting the throne just because," but when he has his belief seriously challenged, he evolves as a person. the writing in thor's arc is really fucking weak, but that's still what the arc is. when loki has his beliefs challenged, he basically looses his fucking mind and ruins everything for everyone forever. that's the difference between a spoiled person and a straight-up narcissist. his plan to permanently outlaw thor, engineer the death of laufey, and destroy jotunheim is the kind of convoluted, self-centered drama that a toddler would dream up in order to feel like they had total control over everyone's perception of them. it's not an adult's reaction to a crisis of identity, which is introspective, not based on manipulating external forces to avoid dealing with your own sense of self. it's not even a particularly intelligent reaction. (no one was questioning his status as an asgardian, and if he could have crafted a genuine peace with the jotuns he would have been hailed as a great king. laufey & co. didn't even know loki was the traitor in the house of odin, so its not like he was risking exposure by leaving those dudes alive. thor was banished for trying to kill the jotuns so he should already know that's not the kind of tactic odin's going to find impressive. he's... being really stupid in that movie.)
loki's never really engaged in trying to go what's good or right for the sake of doing what's good or right, he's just trying to manipulate how people see him, or accrue power to himself. usually he's engaged in both things. and usually he's pretty bad at it, his stroke of genius at the end of thor 2 aside. ("if you can't beat god, become him," to quote another favorite character who is also a horrible person; it's the smartest thing loki's ever done)
loki is objectively, without any doubt, without any question, complicated, wounded, sensitive, and broken. he is those things, i don't want to pretend he's not. it would be stupid to pretend he's not. he's in terrible pain, he's been through horrible things. but that doesn't undo the fact that the dude is also an asshole. he is a huge asshole. he's a huge dick. loki is in pain, but he refuses to recognize, to take responsibility for, his own role in that pain. he's constitutionally incapable of feeling like he's ever actually done anything wrong. he also refuses to see that "i am in pain" does not make it okay to turn around and say "so you should be in pain, too." he doesn't understand that "i feel like i deserve this thing" doesn't mean you can say "so i'm going to take it from you."
look, i love this dude. i wish he really did just need a hug because i would be first in line to give him one (i am not a hugger tbh but i would do it for this dude). the thing is... i am pretty sure that if i tried to hug loki, he would hurl me through the nearest wall and i would die. so it's not that i don't see him as wounded, complex, broken, it's that i think that doesn't excuse his bullshit. and i think he uses it as an excuse.
that doesn't mean i'm not a fan. it doesn't mean i think he's nothing but a gross conniving evil mustache-twirler all the time. i am pretty sure his second attempt to save jane was 100% genuine, and i'm 50-50 on whether i find his "last words" to thor genuine, and my heart bleeds for what happened to him in this movie up until his "death," despite the fact that he's pretty much responsible for the situation he's in.
and man, this last movie hurt so bad because, even though i refuse to pretend loki's right about himself, which is to say, right in the magnitude of his sense of persecution, right in the degree to which he feels maligned, or justified in his horrible actions, even though i refuse to pretend that he isn't a narcissistic asshole in need a MAJOR reality check, i still really love the bastard.
thor 2 opened the possibility of an amazing redemption arc for loki, but then he ruined it. what he ultimately does just... throws that possibility away. and that really hurt. i felt betrayed by this asshole even through what he did was 100% true to form. i wish, i wish, i wish — you know. i wish it could be different.
but he did throw the possibility away, because for all his tragedy and brokenness, for all his pain and confusion, he's also a major dickface. and i can't ignore that.
i can sometimes indulge in fic that changes him, a little, where he's still a jackass, but he's the team's pet jackass, where he's still awful, but he's awful in service of the good guys instead of just himself, but i can't pretend that's the canon.
he is complicated, wounded, and broken, but he's also self-obsessed, petty, and cruel. he is in pain, but he's also not a good person. one doesn't erase the other.
that's really my only point
so anyway that's my stream-of-consciousness attempt to explain what i think of loki; i hope it answered your question. i'm curious if my view is actually more like yours than you thought, now that i've tried to say it in more detail?
